UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has spared Australia’s blushes by opting not to list the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’. But it has also demanded that Australia make good on its plans to save it.
The coast alongside the Great Barrier Reef is home to ports, farms, holiday resorts, and more than a million people. It all puts pressure on the Reef, and it’s time for some firms plans to manage it.
The Great Barrier Reef is home to some 1,600 species of bony fish, 130 sharks and rays, and turtles, mammals and more. Most have had no population monitoring, meaning we don’t know how well they are faring.
The United Nations is set to decide whether to add the Great Barrier Reef to the List of World Heritage in Danger. But what is the list, and what does it mean for the places that are on it?
Port traffic near the Great Barrier Reef will more than double by 2025, as coal and other exports grow. While major incidents are rare, the chronic toll on the reef itself still remains largely unknown.
Successive plans to curb the sediments, nutrients and pesticides flowing into the waters around the Great Barrier Reef have fallen short, leaving the corals that call the reef home highly vulnerable.
With the United Nations set to decide on whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as officially in danger, we look at the various threats to the reef’s survival, starting with the biggie… climate change.
Amid talk of paths to surplus and investing in infrastructure, both sides of politics seem to have forgotten Australia’s longstanding responsibility to govern sustainably, and not just for the economy.
Environment minister Greg Hunt hasn’t asked for any more money for the Emissions Reduction Fund. So what is actually in the budget, as far as climate change is concerned?
The Federal Budget 2015 makes little mention of emissions reductions or renewable energy, but does feature funding boosts for drought assistance and the Great Barrier Reef. What else is in?
The government says it has met all of the recommendations for safeguarding the Great Barrier Reef. But a close reading of the dozens of UN recommendations shows that many have been only partly fulfilled.
Fishing is a major threat to the Great Barrier Reef, but new research shows that areas closed to fishing just over a decade ago are home to bigger and more fish.
A new report aims to establish exactly what we do and don’t know about the effects of dredging on the Great Barrier Reef, and suggests that managing fine sediments will be one of the biggest challenges.
The federal and Queensland governments have unveiled their blueprint for protecting the Great Barrier Reef for future generations. Will the $2 billion plan succeed? Our experts give their verdicts.
The Australian government’s latest report on the Great Barrier Reef, submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre last Friday, has been carefully crafted and word-smithed, with many of its claims supported…
Mike Hall, Australian Institute of Marine Science and Scott Cummins, University of the Sunshine Coast
Crown-of-thorns starfish are one of the biggest threats to the Great Barrier Reef. Since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover, with almost half of this coral loss due to the crown-of-thorns…
The Great Barrier Reef is a national and global icon, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981. Since then, it’s become apparent that this vast array of marine ecosystems – stretching along 2,300 kilometres…