Pearls and Irritations

Ten years ago, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority wrote in a submission to the federal government that 1.2°C was a key threshold for the Reef. Beyond that, there would be a rapid deterioration in the extent of hard coral cover. The terrible reality is that we are already at 1.1°C of global warming right now. The system is on a knife edge. The Australian government must act. And it must stop approving new fossil fuel developments.

The possibility of inscribing the Great Barrier Reef on the List of World Heritage in Danger is once again in the headlines.

The 21-nation World Heritage Committee is scheduled to meet next month in Riyadh and in preparation UNESCO has released the latest Great Barrier Reef draft decision for the Committee to consider and adopt.

This year, UNESCO has stepped back from recommending an immediate inscription of the Reef on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the Albanese Government’s improved climate and Reef policies. UNESCO noted the legislated emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030, a floor not a ceiling (thanks to the Independents) and Australia’s commitment to progressive reduction targets.

However, UNESCO and IUCN – the Committee’s advisory body – noted the Reef remains “under serious threat” and “urgent and sustained action is needed”. The draft decision calls for “clear government commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions consistent with the efforts required to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”.

About ten years ago, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority wrote in a submission to the federal government that 1.2°C was a key threshold for the Reef. Beyond that, there would be a rapid deterioration in the extent of hard coral cover. Above 1.2°C, the Reef would become increasingly dominated by soft fleshy macro algae.

The terrible reality is that we are already at 1.1°C of global warming right now. The Reef has already experienced six mass coral bleaching events since 1998, the worst being in 2016 and 2017, and scientists predict it is highly likely to happen again this summer.

While many parts of the World Heritage site have been able to recover since 2017, the system is on a knife edge. A fraction of a degree matters. At 1.5°C, the IPCC has with high confidence predicted that coral reefs are projected to decline by a further 70-90%. It’s not just the Great Barrier Reef – all the world’s coral reefs are being impacted.

So urgent and drastic action is needed. UNESCO’s draft decision recognises this. It contains a request to the Albanese Government to report back to the World Heritage Centre by 1 February next year on progress towards limiting emissions to 1.5°C. Unless sufficient progress is made, the draft decision says that an In Danger listing is possible at next year’s World Heritage Committee meeting.

So, between now and 1 February, the Australian Government must abandon fluffy language that 1.5°C is “within reach”. The government must state unequivocally that it is determined to achieve the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. And it needs to commit to a clear, actionable pathway to get there.

The government is averse to hearing that Australia’s ongoing development of fossil fuels is inconsistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C and contributing to the deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef and many other world heritage icons. But nonetheless that is the reality. Ruling out new fossil fuel developments is an essential element of a credible Reef policy.

Another is reducing fishing pressure. Fortunately, there is good news on this front. Scientists have confirmed that ‘no-take’ green zones in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park have increased the resilience of coral reefs. If the web of life is fully protected, it will be more stable than if some elements are removed, for example, by commercial fishing. This makes basic sense. So, tackling overfishing is key to a healthy reef system.

On World Environment Day, the Australian and Queensland Governments announced the phase out of gill-net fishing in the Great Barrier Reef, in response to a recommendation in the UNESCO/IUCN 2022 Reactive Monitoring Mission report. This is extremely good news and the culmination of decades of conservation advocacy backed by science. Protected species such as dugong, inshore dolphins and turtles drown in gill-nets. Some parts of the Reef will be free of gillnets by the end of this year and the rest by 2027. This is a great win for the reef’s threatened marine life.

UNESCO’s draft decision welcomes the gill-net announcement and the broader set of fisheries commitments made by both governments and urges their rapid implementation – to be effective, these commitments must progress beyond words in a strategy.

The third essential element of Reef policy is tackling land-based sources of pollution, primarily agricultural runoff. The draft decision doesn’t pull any punches here. It notes “with serious concern the slow progress in achieving the water quality targets” which aim to reduce sediment and nitrogen runoff from entering the Reef. Both governments have committed to achieve pollutant reduction targets by 2025 but there is still a long way to go before they are met.

A major driver of sediment pollution is tree clearing in the Reef catchment. On Sunday 30^th July, the Queensland Government released its annual Statewide Land and Trees Study. It showed that while there was a 10% reduction in clearing in the Reef catchment, overall, there was an increase in the full removal of woody vegetation. There is an urgent need to remove the loopholes in Queensland’s vegetation management laws and to fully protect remnant vegetation, high value regrowth and riparian vegetation in order to reduce fine sediment muddying the Reef’s waters.

A major driver of nitrogen pollution is the use of fertilisers on cane farms. Historically, governments have funded farmers to improve their on-farm management practices. This needs to stop. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent this way for more than a decade. It’s now time to invest public funds in coastal catchment restoration: restoring natural wetlands, replanting riparian vegetation, mangroves, seagrass beds, bringing back as far as possible the natural floodplain dynamics along the Reef coastline. This would also entail amalgamating small unproductive low-lying cane farms. It’s time for a coastal land use transition to less polluting, more productive land uses.

In the draft decision UNESCO has called for “A drastic shift in programmes to attain the 2025 water quality targets for fine sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and the effective implementation of the QSFS [Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy] and a full phase out of gill-net fisheries in the property are of the highest priority.”

There is much work to do by both governments to convince UNESCO and IUCN and the World Heritage Committee, that they are doing enough to protect the future of the Reef. As always, it will take political will and the investment of public funds. This is not just something that could be done. It is something that must be done.

The Australian Government has a legal and moral obligation to take the action necessary to protect the Great Barrier Reef on behalf of all humanity and to transmit this global treasure intact to future generations. Climate change is the greatest challenge to this legal obligation but, under the World Heritage Convention, Australia must “do all it can to this end, to the utmost of its own resources”. That rules out approving any new fossil fuel developments.

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