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 Canberra released a five-yearly review of the reef and moves to
protect it, to address concerns raised by UNESCO and persuade the
world body not to put the key tourist attraction on its "in danger"
list next year.
"Even with the recent management initiatives to reduce threats and
improve resilience, the overall outlook for the Great Barrier Reef
is poor, has worsened since 2009 and is expected to further
deteriorate," the government said in its outlook report.
The fragile reef, which stretches 2,300 km (1,430 miles) along
Australia's east coast, is the centerpiece of a campaign by green
groups and marine tourist operators aiming to stop a planned coal
port expansion that would require millions of cubic meters of sand
to be dredged up and dumped near the reef.
The reef has the world's largest collection of coral reefs, with 400
types of coral, 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 types of mollusk, and
is home to threatened species, including the dugong and large green
turtle, the World Heritage list says.
The government said run-off from farms, crown-of-thorns starfish and
climate change remain the biggest threats to the reef, but
acknowledged that shipping and dredging occur in reef areas already
facing pressure from other impacts.
"Greater reductions of all threats at all levels, reef-wide,
regional and local, are required to prevent the projected declines
in the Great Barrier Reef and to improve its capacity to recover,"
the government said.
The government said it would not allow any port development outside
long-established ports in Queensland. Those existing ports include
Abbot Point, where India's Adani Group and compatriot GVK plan a
huge coal terminal expansion, and Gladstone, where ship traffic is
set to increase sharply from 2015 as huge new liquefied natural gas
plants start exports.
Green groups said the report did not let off the hook the mining
industry, which is digging up coal for export, adding to climate
change and expanding ports along the reef.
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"The greatest risk, again, is climate change," said Wendy Tubman, an
official of the North Queensland Conservation Council, which is
leading a legal fight against the Abbot Point expansion.
"And we all know what the greatest contribution to climate change
is: that's mining coal for export."
The Queensland Resources Council, which represents the mining
industry, said it supported the effort of the state government to
improve port development and management along the reef.
At a meeting in Doha in June, the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO
deferred until next year a decision on whether to place the
300,000-sq-km reef on its list of sites in danger.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
is concerned over the proposed coastal developments, and has asked
Australia to submit an updated report on the state of conservation
of the reef, which sprawls over an area half the size of Texas, by
next February 1.
(Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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