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Australia's Great Barrier Reef: UNESCO monitors its threats


In May 2014 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) commissioned a report on threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef along the coast of Queensland, such as pollution, water quality, and coastal development. UNESCO is the global organization that monitors significant cultural heritage sites. The report by its World Heritage Committee (WHC) was critical of the government’s handling of key threats to the reef, especially port development. It said it would list the Great Barrier Reef as a “World Heritage in Danger” site.

UNESCO maintained that the reef, the world’s largest coral structure of more than 2,600 kilometres (1,680 miles), and one of the “natural wonders of the world” was deteriorating, and that it would make a decision in May 2015 about its heritage listing. The listing would mean considerable restrictions regarding development along the coast.

Australia’s national government and the Queensland state government indicated that significant progress had been made in addressing the threats stated in the 2014 report.

On Friday May 29, 2015, the WHC drafted a decision accepting the Australian government’s commitment to reduce pollution run-off by 80% by 2025 through the restriction of the new port development in the area and limitations on dredging. However, the committee said some commitments had not yet been enacted into law. The WHC requested a progress review in 2017 (Canberra Times, May 29, 2015).

The draft decision will be discussed at UNESCO’s meeting in Bonn in June. At that time the WHC will either accept or modify their draft decision. Currently WHC has deleted the words “in danger” from their references. Australian representatives will also attend the meeting in June. Although the WHC decided not to officially list the Great Barrier Reef as being “in danger” it has put Australia on probation.


[Martina Nicolls is the author of the award-winning 1996 article “Canaries in coal mines: corals in reefs” for the CRC Reef Research Centre, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia]







MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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