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Australia's Great Barrier Reef spared "in-danger" classification: UNESCO

Xinhua, July 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

As expected, Australia's Great Barrier Reef has been spared "in-danger" status at the UN World Heritage Committee's meeting in Germany overnight, proving what Australian mining groups say was a scare campaign against development coordinated by environmental activist groups.

The ruling came three years after the committee first threatened to add the Great Barrier Reef to the "in-danger" list.

Local media reported on Thursday the Great Barrier Reef will remain on the UNESCO "watch" list for another four years.

UNESCO said the reef would remain on probation until the Australian government's Reef 2050 plan and the Australian government and UNESCO's comprehensive five-year review of reef health by 2019 and 2020 are implemented, respectively.

The Reef 2050 plan limits port development, bans the dumping at sea of dredge spoil, so as to clean up water running onto the reef.

Australian scientists criticized the report as being a plan for sustainable development rather than protecting and conserving the reef.

International delegates at the meeting welcomed the steps taken by Australia in the implementation of the Reef 2050 plan; however they stressed the need to bolster the reef's resilience to climate change and to limit the development of ports in the area.

Queensland Resource Council Chief Executive Michael Roche said the UNESCO ruling dismisses Australia's environmental lobby's perpetuation of lies and distortions.

"The World Heritage Committee has ignored the fear mongering and relied on facts and science and so this is very bad news for activist groups who have used reef scaremongering to raise millions of dollars in donations from an unsuspecting public," Roche said. "Groups like Greenpeace, who are not worried about the reef, they are simply trying to shut down the coal industry."

Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles said the decision comes as a relief to the 60,000 Australian residents who rely on the Great Barrier Reef for their livelihoods.

Miles said progress reports on Australia's plan to reduce nitrogen levels by 80 percent and sediment by 50 percent would go before the UN World Heritage committee at the end of 2016. Endi