Culture is barely mentioned in the latest Intergenerational Report – as was the case with the three preceding it. But we need strong policies to support cultural heritage, and we need them urgently.
UNESCO status: a mill stone round Edinburgh’s neck?
Vaidotas Mišeikis
Edinburgh, recently voted fourth-most-beautiful city in the world, is one of many having problems with the coveted UNESCO status. It’s time for change.
Turtles are among the species that could be harmed by dredging, even under the government’s new dredge dumping rules.
AAP Image/University of QLD
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…
In this January 2015 photograph, a man walks through the ruins of Old Aleppo, a designated World Heritage site.
Hosam Katan/Reuters
Recently in Aleppo, Syria, the Jabha Shamiya militia has started carrying out a new urban warfare strategy: tunnel bombing. Aside from the human damage wrought by this tactic, it is also extremely damaging…
Sacred time.
Reading: Pavel L Photo and Video/Shutterstock
Two initiatives aimed at getting children to learn and read more have just launched with a flourish. The $15m Global Learning Xprize pits teams of innovators across the world in a competition aiming to…
Tony Abbott may have planted a few trees, but he’s also sought to bury many of Australia’s environmental safeguards.
Britta Campion/AAPImage
Before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott gave us fair warning that he would turn the clock back on the environment. As promised, his government has devoted itself to short-term economics and the sort of hardline…
The list of the natural world’s most extraordinary places, UNESCO’s World Heritage List, gained its 1,000th entry this week with the addition of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. To be chosen for…
About 5% of the Tasmanian Wilderness could delisted as a World Heritage area, if an Australian government request wins international approval.
Ta Ann Truths/Flickr
This week, experts will debate the future of two of Australia’s World Heritage areas, the Tasmanian Wilderness and the Great Barrier Reef, at a meeting in Doha, Qatar. The world will be watching, as it…
Louis Armstrong was used by the US government as a political tool.
Jazz is filling the radio waves and culture sections in honour of International Jazz Day. The day is organised by UNESCO, who say that the event, first run in 2012, is designed to celebrate the music for…
Glorious though Nigerian cinema may be, it’s not being fairly compared.
Michael Rank
This week Nigeria received a storm of positive publicity as it officially became Africa’s largest economy, with one commentator declaring: “Move over South Africa: here comes Nigeria!” The entrepreneurial…
Already operating as a coal port, the disposal of dredge material from expanding Abbot Point is now the subject of a legal challenge.
GBRMPA
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s recent decision to allow 3 million cubic metres of dredge material to be disposed of 25 kilometres off Abbot Point in north Queensland has attracted passionate…
A scuba diving tourist feeds a giant potato cod in the Great Barrier Reef.
Pete Niesen/Shutterstock.com
After decades of work, A$200 million in taxpayer funding and even more from farmers’ pockets, we finally have a rare good news story to tell about the Great Barrier Reef. Thanks to an extraordinary effort…
World Heritage won’t mean anything if nothing’s done about climate change.
Flickr/350.org
The Great Barrier Reef may have been spared the indignity of being listed as a World Heritage Area “in danger” this week, but the Reef’s woes are just beginning. There are 962 properties on the world heritage…
Will the Great Barrier Reef be declared ‘In Danger’? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
AAP Image/Catlin Seaview Survey
UNESCO, the body that lists world heritage areas, continues to express extreme disquiet about the state of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. But it has now postponed to February 2014 consideration…
Queensland’s proposed port developments threaten the state’s important northern wetlands, the reef’s first line of defence.
Rex Boggs
UNESCO has released its latest report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef, and has once again raised concerns about excessive port development along the coast, and the state of water quality around…
Incidents of major agricultural run-off, like the recent Queensland floods, certainly affect Great Barrier Reef water quality, but systems are in place to reduce their effect.
AAP Image/Twitter, ISS, Chris Hadfield
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is both a national marine park and a World Heritage Area. But next to the reef, a catchment of 400,000km2 is almost completely developed for agriculture, predominantly beef…
Neither the Federal nor the Queensland Governments are doing what’s required to save the Great Barrier Reef.
AAP Image/Greenpeace, Dean Sewell
The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area is clearly in danger. But will UNESCO bite the bullet and officially declare it so? UNESCO acknowledges that the property is iconic. It is the world’s largest…
UNESCO’s warning has done little to turn Australia’s coal development around.
Peter Asquith
Australia has delivered an updated report on the state of conservation in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) that tip-toes around the politically charged issue of constraining major port expansions on the Queensland…
A bund wall surrounds the Fishermans Landing Wharf expansion in Gladstone.
AAP/Dave Hunt
The sealing of a leak of dredge spoil (harbour-bottom scooped up and dumped in a landfill area) in a bund wall in Gladstone harbour was announced on 25th of June by the Gladstone Ports Corporation. Scientists…