“Climate change and the flow of farm chemicals and coastal sediment into the waters that wash over one of Australia’s most significant nature areas, the Great Barrier Reef, pose the biggest threats to its survival, according to a government report to Unesco released early Friday,” says The New York Times.
The report was intended to impress the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization with how much progress the Australian government has made on protecting the 1,400-mile-long reef.
But the review doesn’t mention the development of one of the world’s biggest coal mines 200 miles from the reef, which could affect the health of coral communities. And out of the “151 planned measures, including the limiting of sediment and chemical runoff from farms and the better management of starfish predators,” just 32 have been finalized, while another 103 are beginning or set to begin, says the Times.
The reef suffered the worst coral bleaching and die-off in recorded history this year, largely because of climate change. Ian Chubb, formerly Australia’s chief scientist and the current chairman of an independent panel on the reef, says that while other pollutants aren’t helping matters, the greatest devastation will come from climate change. “The major impacts on the reef will most likely result from the long-term release of substantial quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” he wrote in the report’s introduction.