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Australia on Friday announced a multimillion-dollar plan to improve water quality in the Great Barrier Reef in a bid to protect the world’s largest coral ecosystem.
$130 million
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said $130 million (€117 million) would be spent on reducing nutrient and pesticide runoff and improving land management for invasive species and the most vulnerable reef areas. Stretching 2,300 km along the coast of Queensland (northeastern Australia), the Great Barrier Reef is considered the world’s largest living structure. It has an extremely rich biodiversity with more than 600 species of coral and 1,625 species of fish.
Coral dieback causes discoloration as warming waters cause corals to lose nutrients and color, threatening the reef’s fragile ecosystem.
The most recent mass bleaching events occurred in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024.
Australia, one of the world’s largest exporters of natural gas and coal
This year’s bleaching event caused extreme or severe damage to 81% of the reefs, according to government reports. It will take months to determine how many reefs have suffered irreversible damage.
Lisa Schindler, an ecologist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, welcomed the plan while stressing that more needed to be done to address the root causes of climate change. “The reef needs all the help it can get,” she said. Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of gas and coal and until recently had a goal of becoming carbon neutral.
World Heritage ‘in danger’
At the end of June, UNESCO considered listing the reef as a “dangerous” World Heritage Site and again called on Australia to take “urgent” measures to protect it. Tanya Dr Plibersek said the financial package was vital to “ensure our children and grandchildren can enjoy the beauty and majesty of the reef”.
“Sediment runoff is one of the biggest threats facing the Great Barrier Reef,” she said. “Poor water quality prevents coral regrowth, kills seagrasses and blocks the sunlight that healthy reefs need. »
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