Australia’s leading coral reef scientists have called for huge coalmining and port developments in Queensland to be scrapped in order to avoid “permanent damage” to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Australian Coral Reef Society (ACRS) report, compiled by experts from five Australian universities and submitted to the United Nations, warns that “industrialising the Great Barrier Reef coastline will cause further stress to what is already a fragile ecosystem.”
The report notes that nine proposed mines in the Galilee Basin, in central Queensland, will produce coal that will emit an estimated 705m tonnes of carbon dioxide at capacity – making the Galilee Basin region the seventh largest source of emissions in the world when compared to countries.
Climate change, driven by excess emissions, has been cited as the leading long-term threat to the Great Barrier Reef. Corals bleach and die as water warms and struggle to grow as oceans acidify.
“ACRS believe that a broad range of policies should be urgently put in place as quickly as possible to reduce Australia’s record high per capita carbon emissions to a much lower level,” the report states.
“Such policies are inconsistent with opening new fossil fuel industries like the mega coalmines of the Galilee Basin. Doing so would generate significant climate change that will permanently damage the outstanding universal value of the Great Barrier Reef.”
The warning follows the unveiling of a long-term plan to reverse the reef’s decline on Saturday. The strategy, which outlines cuts in pollution flowing onto the reef but sets out no additional action to curb emissions, was hailed by Tony Abbott as evidence that the government was “utterly committed” to the reef’s preservation.
In the ACRS report, the scientists urge a rethink on associated plans to expand the Abbot Point port, near the town of Bowen as well as calling for a halt to the Galilee Basin mines, which have broad support from the Queensland and federal governments.
The expansion would make Abbot Point one of the largest coal ports in the world, requiring the dredging of 5m tonnes of seabed to facilitate a significant increase in shipping through the reef.
The report warns dredging will have “substantial negative impacts on surrounding seagrass, soft corals and other macroinvertebrates, as well as turtles, dugongs and other megafauna.” Research has shown that coral disease can double in areas close to dredging activity.
The port expansion will also increase the amount of coal dust blowing onto the reef and the risk of shipping strikes upon whales and dugongs, the report states.
Sediment dredged from Abbot Point was initially earmarked to be dumped within the reef’s waters, but following a request from Unesco, an alternate onshore plan was devised.
Dr Selina Ward, a reef scientist at the University of Queensland and co-author of the report, said the high-profile campaign around the sediment dumping obscured the more pressing threats to the reef.
“The dumping of the dredge spoil is important but it’s not the whole story,” she said. “We have the huge background threat of climate change and going ahead with the industrialisation of the coastline just doesn’t sit well with that.
“The dredging involves the removal of seagrass beds and it creates sediment plumes that move large distances and cut light out to corals, which need photosynthesis for energy.
“If we have a 2C rise in the world’s temperature we’ll have bleaching events far more frequently. The outlook really is grim for the reef, but we still have time to turn it around.”
Ward said she hoped the report would spur international pressure on Australia to scale back the mines and port. The report will be send to advisors to Unesco’s world heritage committee, which will decide whether to officially list the reef as “in danger” in June.
“I don’t want to see the Great Barrier Reef listed as in danger, that would be terrible for Australia,” Ward said. “I hope the government understands what is at stake. We can have these mines and this port or we can have a healthy reef. We really can’t have both.”
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