“The Great Barrier Reef is an icon under pressure,” warns Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. A mecca of beautiful biodiversity and tourism, Australia’s world-renowned Great Barrier Reef has come under the siege of ugly pollutants and politics.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR), located off the coast of Queensland, nurtures over 2300 kilometers of breathtaking biodiversity—boasting over 2900 coral reefs, 1500 species of fish, and six of the world’s seven rare species of marine turtles. Not only a national treasure, the GBR has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1981 and supports a $3.9 billion (USD) ecotourism industry.
Despite its worldwide appeal, the Reef is suffering a steady decline in its natural assets. According to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s (GBRMPA) 2014 Outlook Report, “climate change, poor water quality from land-based run-off, impacts from coastal development, and some remaining impacts of fishing remain the major threats to the future vitality of the Great Barrier Reef.” In the past 30 years alone, the Reef has lost half of its coral cover, and in 2014, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) threatened to place the Reef on its “in danger” list should the Australian government fail to change its policies to ensure better protection of the Reef.
Yet so far, the government has fallen short of expectations. Concrete proposals to protect the Reef from GBRMPA and WHC have fallen to the wayside, with both the Queensland State and Australian national governments prioritizing other areas of their economies over the Reef. One industry in particular has been prioritized that directly threatens the GBR: coal mining.
Coal vs. Coral: A Conflict of Interest
The Australian coal mining industry represents a significantly larger portion of the country’s economy than does Reef tourism, with current projects for developing and operating coalmines worth approximately $93 billion (USD). The industry is particularly crucial for Queensland’s economy. Todd Ellis, tenement manager for the Queensland Coal Corporation (QCC), commented to the HPR that, “A reasonable amount of the economy is based on coal mining. We’ve got a couple of advanced development projects, and we’re really optimistic about the future.” Queensland inhabitants are especially hopeful that coal can shrink their 6.5 percent unemployment rate—one of the highest in the nation. Without the jobs and revenue from the coal mining industry, Mr. Ellis, in strong support of the coal industry, voices his concern that “probably we’d go directly into a recession.”
Recently, billionaire Gautam Adani proposed Australia’s largest coal development project to date in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, a site which QCC is considering for establishing tenements and coal extraction. Mr. Adani, who owns the multi-billion dollar Carmichael coalmine in Queensland, proposes to extract thermal coal from the basin and construct a new coal rail line, a feat that could double Queensland’s thermal coal exports and generate 10,000 jobs and more than $17 billion (USD) in taxes and royalties.
Although opening up the Galilee Basin and other coal sources bodes well for the Queensland and national economies, it would in turn hasten the GBR’s rate of deterioration. A number of ongoing projects are located along the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, introducing pollutants, traffic, and dangerous levels of carbon dioxide emissions throughout the larger World Heritage Site area.
A coal loader in Louisa Creek, Queensland.
As such, the state and national governments have to play a precarious balancing act between short-term coal mining profits and long-term Reef deterioration. Professor Terry Hughes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, explained to the HPR, “The state of Queensland and the Commonwealth of Australia basically have a conflict of interest over coal mining royalties versus their responsibilities to manage the Reef.” Unfortunately for the Reef, the economic gains of coal mining are prevailing. Hughes elaborated that with regard to the coalmines, the state and national governments “are singing from the same song sheet; they both get royalties.” Both favor coal over coral.
This under-prioritization of the Reef’s condition has become habitual in government policy. In an interview with the HPR, Jon Day, former director of heritage conservation at GBRMPA and a former Australian representative to the World Heritage Committee, observed, “The attitude towards past and current approvals has shown that [the government] are taking a very short-term perspective on what’s required instead of the long-term necessary perspective” to conserve the Reef’s condition for future generations.
The government’s short-term priorities have even resulted in cutbacks to federal and state government agencies like GBRMPA. Mr. Day elaborated, “Today, the resources available to even look after the Reef are less than we’ve had in the past, and yet the pressures have greatly increased.” With fewer resources at its disposal, managing agencies are hard pressed to address the rising threats to the Reef.
Coalmining activities in particular may tip the scales against the Reef. Professor Hughes explained, “UNESCO are concerned that the government is arranging for coal ports, and the impact on the Reef which is superimposed on all of the preexisting issues.” While the Queensland and Australian governments have their commitment focused elsewhere, the GBR remains the victim of under-prioritization and over-politicization.
Politicizing the Reef
While allowing activities such as coal development to proceed even in light of the Reef’s “in danger” warning, the Australian government is concerned with the political implications of an endangered classification. Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and Environmental Minster Greg Hunt have led the Australian government’s campaign to lobby the WHC against classifying the Reef as “in danger.” Last December, Bishop traveled to the Lima Climate Change Conference to sway WHC representatives. Hunt met with Maria Böhmer, chair of the WHC, with the same goal this January.
Beyond efforts to win over representatives from the 21 countries of the WHC, the government has also taken to downplaying the deterioration of the Reef to the international community. Bishop refuted President Obama’s criticisms in his G20 speech (held in Brisbane in 2014) that called for greater protection of the GBR. Bishop insisted, “We are demonstrating world’s best practice in working with the World Heritage Committee to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef is preserved for generations to come.” Minister Andrew Robb agreed that Obama’s concerns were “unnecessary” and “misinformed” in an attempt to bolster a façade of commitment to the GBR. Yet according to the 2014 Outlook Report, there is still much room for improvement in the government’s practices in addressing climate change and overall coastal activities.
Without a change in policy, the biodiversity of the reef could disappear.
More concerned with the Reef’s possible classification of “in danger” status than its actual state, the Australian government diverts public attention and government resources away from addressing UNESCO’s concerns and restoring the Reef. The Abbott government has allocated only $31.5 million (USD) to its initial investment for the “Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan” to protect its national icon. Even the $78.8 million (USD) promised by the new Queensland Labor government to improve Reef water quality falls miles short of the estimated $1.38 billion needed to improve water quality, or the estimated $618 million needed to reduce pollutants.
Not surprisingly, the Review of “Reef 2050” by the Australian Academy of Science was highly critical of the government’s proposed plan. The Academy points out that “the draft 2050 plan represents business-as-usual in terms of how escalating pressures on the reef are adequately regulated (or not), when much bolder action is required to restore the values of the reef and prevent further degradation.” It seems that the final plan, released March 2015, is still “smoke and mirrors” and not much better. The bolder action that the Academy calls for is action that neither the state nor national governments want to take. Instead of a plan to protect and conserve the GBR, “Reef 2050” is a strategy to offset damage from coastal development and mining in the short-term, and to allow the Reef to suffer a slow decline in the long-term. It is, as Mr. Day describes, “death by a thousand cuts”—cuts by climate change, by poor water quality, by dredging, by coal.
Striking a Balance: the present and future of the Reef
The state and national governments’ focus on the short-term promotes a faulty cost-benefit analysis, however profitable present coalmining projects may be. It is an analysis that merely takes into account current economic gains; yet those gains may not hold in the future. Specifically, the price of thermal coal—a major coal export for Australian companies—has dropped significantly by double digits over the past year alone, suggesting that development of coal mines could fail to deliver the promised economic benefits. Many investors may have caught onto this discouraging trend, as Mr. Adani remains the biggest advocate and the only secure investor of the Galilee Basin proposal. Even greater concerns with climate change have led to more cautious funding and large-scale company divestments in the coal industry.
These factors suggest that ecotourism in the long run may outweigh the short-term benefits of coal mining and other coastal development initiatives. Mr. Day agrees, “The value of areas for tourism in the long-term, if they are looked after properly, is probably many times the short-term value of what we’re talking about in terms of exports.” After all, coal is a limited commodity; the benefits of such exports can only last as long as the coal supplies. But the Reef, if cared for properly, can support the tourism industry long after coal runs out.
To reap these long-term benefits, both governments will have to place greater priority on the Reef. Anything from decreased coal exports to stricter fishing guidelines to increased GBRMPA funding that addresses the WHC’s concerns is a step forward in long-term preservation. This reinvestment in the GBR should also come with a reaffirmation of the Reef’s value to Australia. To preserve the ecosystem, the governments will be forced to reevaluate the extent to which other activities can disturb this national icon. If Australia really does want to ensure the wellbeing of the Reef’s biodiversity and its WHC status, striking a better balance between the country’s economic interests and Reef’s protection will become unavoidable.