Australias Great Barrier Reef Under Threat
Posted on 6 April 2010 by LynThomas in Uncategorized
The question is being urgently asked, “Why is the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest reef system, still being used as a ‘coal highway’ by commercial shipping?”
According to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority there have been approximately 282 confirmed vessel spills in the Great Barrier Reef Heritage Park area between 1987 and 2002. Recently a Chinese ship, the Shen Neng 1, ran aground when it was taking a shortcut through the reef. It is leaking oil into the waters and is dangerously close to breaking apart. This could result in its 1,000 tons of heavy fuel oil being dispersed into the ocean, which would take weeks to clean up.
Other dangers to the reef include, climate warming, overfishing near the reef and the introduction of foreign marine species.
Rising sea temperatures lead to coral bleaching, which eventually kills the coral. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times last year that once carbon dioxide reaches the levels predicted for 20 years from now, coral reefs will be doomed to extinction.
Agricultural run-off, with the use of pesticides, poses a further threat to coral reef systems. The amount of sediment running off the land onto the Great Barrier Reef has quadrupled over the past 150 years.
It is estimated that hull fouling and ballast water discharge has introduced more than 250 different foreign marine species into Australian waters. Many of them a threat to the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.
The world’s largest reef system is home to 1,500 species of fish, 359 types of hard coral, one third of the world’s soft corals, six of the world’s seven species of threatened marine turtle, more than 30 species of marine mammals, 5,000 to 8,000 molluscs and thousands of different sponges, worms, crustaceans, 800 species of echinoderms and 215 bird species.
It will be too late to make amends, once the great lungs of the ocean have been destroyed.
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[...] As the Chinese vessel Shen Neng1 runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia and is in danger of breaking up, the world’s largest reef system is once again under threat. Read how many vessel spills there have been just since 1987… [...]