The
draft decision by UNESCO and IUCN proposes not to list the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage Area as “in danger”, but it does put Australia on notice. It requests a progress report by 1 December 2016, vowing that if “the anticipated progress is not being made”, the GBR will be considered by the Committee in 2017.
At this stage, these are only recommendations, and the draft decision will be considered at the Committee’s meeting in Germany in
late June, when the actual wording of the decision will be finalised.
The Committee does not always accept the wording in draft decisions and in recent years has often made amendments. Various factors can influence the views of its
21 member countries, so the final outcome may well depend on the Committee’s deliberations at the meeting.
The real state of the reef
Either way, the reality is that despite all the pronouncements by the Australian government that the GBR is healthy, the evidence contained in its
2014 Outlook Report and
Strategic Assessment has repeatedly demonstrated that the real situation is not as rosy as UNESCO and others are being told.
The following examples, from the Strategic Assessment, reveal the deterioration in many of the world heritage values for which the GBR was recognised as being internationally significant in 1981:
– Since 1985, hard coral cover has
declined from 28% to 13.8%, mainly in the southern two-thirds of the Reef.
– Significant, widespread losses of seagrass have occurred in areas directly affected by cyclones Yasi (2011), Marcia (2015) and Nathan (2015); seagrass abundance south of Cooktown has
declined since 2009.
– Catastrophic nesting failures at globally significant seabird breeding areas have been recorded in the southern GBR, and the number of breeding seabirds on Raine Island has
fallen by 70% since the 1980s.
– The dugong population south of Cooktown has drastically declined from 1962 levels (see
chapter 7, page 13 here).
Differing perspectives?
The government’s 2014
Outlook Report concluded that:
…the overall outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is poor, has worsened since 2009 and is expected to further deteriorate in the future. Greater reductions of threats at all levels, Reef-wide, regional and local, are required to prevent the projected declines in the Great Barrier Reef.
To make doubly sure the GBR was not listed as “in danger”, diplomatic lobbying
seems to have become the government’s main focus in recent months, when what is really needed is a serious and continuous focus on addressing the issues highlighted in its own reports.
The government’s view about the overall health of the GBR differs from that of many concerned individuals and organisations throughout Australia.
There is a widespread belief that not enough has been done to ensure the restoration of the
world heritage values, especially those shown to be deteriorating. This has led many, including the
Australian Academy of Science, to state that the
Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability Plan is deficient, particularly given the
projected changes over the next 35 years.
Concerns for the GBR include
climate change,
water quality,
coastal development,
shipping, and
unsustainable fishing. The Reef 2050 Plan will need to improve in all these areas if it is to achieve its intended aims.
A group of eminent Australians has also recently voiced their
concerns about issues that will further impact on the GBR.
Unprecedented lobbying
The international
lobbying about the GBR in 2014-15 has included senior government officials visiting all the
countries on the Committee and briefing diplomats in Canberra and in Paris, offering
GBR junkets to overseas journalists, and providing briefings to technical experts from many countries, including
paying for visits to the Reef or to resort islands.
The government’s consistent message during all of this lobbying is that the GBR is healthy, and adequate financing will be available to implement the Reef 2050 Plan.
However, several overseas experts have recently told me that the
briefings may not have
provided the full picture. One example is the much-touted ban on dumping dredge spoil from port developments in the Marine Park, without raising the fact that about a million tonnes of maintenance dredging spoil will continue to be dumped every year in the World Heritage Area.
The expensive, excessive and selective lobbying about the GBR sets a poor global example in attempting to influence the decision-making processes of the World Heritage Committee.
Jon C. Day is PhD candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
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