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Insiders expect the endangered odds vote to end with the thread. A danger rating would be a bad PR for the tourism business card.
The summer of 2020-21 has been relatively mild without major cyclones, allowing a strong recovery of hard corals. AIMS reported 39 percent hard coral coverage on southern reefs, 26 percent in central reefs and 27 percent in the north. However, the growth was “largely due to the increase in the number of fast-growing acropora corals”, raising concerns that other corals may have performed just as well.
“The Great Barrier Reef remains exposed to the predicted consequences of climate change, including more severe cyclones and more frequent and intense sea heat waves. The observed recovery has already been observed and can be reversed in a short time, â€said the AIMS report.
China chairs the World Heritage Committee and Australian media have linked the country to the nomination in Danger. Ms Ley did not name China but said “there was clearly politics behind it”.
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Chinese Deputy Education Minister Tian Xuejun, chair of this year’s World Heritage Committee, said this week that Australia should “fulfill its duty to protect World Heritage instead of making baseless accusations against other states â€.
A recent report from the Australian Academy of Sciences said if the world warmed by 2 degrees, only 1% of corals would survive. The Earth has already warmed by 1.1 degrees and medium-term estimates predict a warming of 1.5 degrees by 2045 to 2050.
Tom Bridge, senior coral curator at the Queensland Museum and the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said that despite the welcome growth in coral cover in recent years, climate change resulted in more frequent and catastrophic bleaching events, which would exceed the ability of corals to fully recover.
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Dr Bridge said coral recovery was mainly due to the fast growing coral species, but little was known about how these events affected the overall diversity of corals on the reef.
“It’s great that there has been a recovery, but the factors that caused the decline are still there and are getting worse – need to be addressed,” he said. “The recovery is driven by a few fast growing species of acropra corals and it is possible that we have lost diversity without even knowing it.”
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