The United Nations has warned Australia not to allow the development of new ports along the country’s iconic Great Barrier Reef, as the World Heritage-listed natural wonder is under threat from an “unprecedented” gas and mining boom.
The Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has released a long-awaited assessment of the “state of conservation” of the 2,300km (1,430-mile) reef, which is the world’s largest living structure and has been on the World Heritage list since 1981.
The scathing report into Australia’s management of the reef warns the area could be listed as a World Heritage site “at risk” unless “substantial” changes are made to better protect the area.
Key pressures on the reef — located off Queensland in northeast Australia — include coastal development, ports and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, extreme weather, grounding of ships and poor water quality, Unesco said.
The report arose from a visit to Australia and the reef by a Unesco mission earlier this year, sparked by concerns about rapid development along the Queensland coast, particularly of LNG plants at Gladstone and Curtis Island, a mammoth project targeting annual production of 12 million tonnes.
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The mission said it had found an “unprecedented” development boom in the region with serious long-term conservation risks.
Australia is riding a wave of resources investment due to booming demand from Asia, with projects worth Aus$450 billion (£284 billion) in the pipeline.
The world’s largest coral reef is not yet at sufficient risk to be declared in danger but Unesco said the sheer number and scale of proposals including LNG, tourism and mining projects could threaten it.
Declining water quality and climate change were the major issues and it was “essential to reduce development and other pressures as much as possible to enable an increase in the reef’s resilience”, Unesco’s World Heritage Committee stated.
The document said it was essential Australia applies a “highly precautionary approach” when considering new coastal and port development that might affect the reef.
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The report urged Australia not to permit the creation of ports separate to those which already exist in the reef zone and asks for a strategic assessment of the entire area, implying that new developments should be held up until that report is complete.
Tony Burke, Australia’s Environment Minister, agreed that the reef was at a “crossroads” and the Government was “acutely aware of the challenges facing the reef such as climate change and the impacts of coastal development”.
“While these issues are complex, we are committed to addressing them through approaches both on land and in the marine environment,” Mr Burke said.
However, he said there was not much he could do to prevent development applications already in progress.
“I can’t take away the rights at law that applicants have when they’ve already started their approval process,” he said.
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“Certainly for the areas that the World Heritage Committee would be most concerned about, we’re not expecting any of those decisions to come to me before the strategic assessment work is concluded anyway.”
Campbell Newman, the premier of the state of Queensland, which is responsible for the reef locally, said that he could not accommodate some of the report’s chief recommendations and warned that “we are in the coal business”.
“We will protect the environment but we are not going to see the economic future of Queensland shut down,” Mr Newman said.
Environmental groups said the report should be a wake-up call for the Government, with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) describing the potential danger listing as a “national disgrace”.
Don Henry, ACF chief, said the mining boom was putting the reef in peril, with a near-miss involving a bulk carrier just two weeks ago and a Chinese coal carrier gouging a huge scar in the coral when it foundered back in 2010.
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The report recommends the World Heritage Committee “note with great concern” the “potentially significant impact” of unprecedented scale of coastal development “currently being proposed within and affecting” the reef.
The committee will discuss the report when it meets in St Petersburg later this month.