Australia released its long-term blueprint to save the Great Barrier Reef yesterday, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying protecting the World Heritage site was a priority.
The 35-year plan for the major tourist attraction off the Queensland coast includes a complete and permanent ban on the dumping of capital dredge material in the area and sets targets to improve water quality and marine life populations.
The plan would “secure Australia’s majestic Great Barrier Reef as a place of outstanding universal value on the World Heritage List,” Abbott said.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has threatened to put the reef on its danger list due to threats from dredging, climate change, farm run-off and the destructive crown-of-thorns starfish.
However, Abbott said the reef was a priority for his conservative government, adding that the Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan addressed all of the international community’s concerns.
“At the highest level this is a subject where Australia is telling our international partners ... that we are utterly committed as an entire nation to the protection of the Great Barrier Reef,” Abbott told reporters in Queensland.
The Great Barrier Reef, which stretches over 2,300km is a maze of about 3,000 coral reefs and 1,050 islands along the northeast coast of Australia teeming with marine life.
Australian Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt said the plan was designed to ensure that for each successive decade between now and 2050, the quality and universal values of the reef improved.
“The heart of this plan and program is about better water quality with hard targets, including a 50 percent reduction in nitrogen by 2018 and an 80 percent reduction in nitrogen by 2025,” Hunt said.
Pesticide loads in priority areas must drop by at least 60 percent by 2018 while populations of turtles, dolphins and dugongs must be either stable or increasing by 2020.
Queensland Minister for the Environment Steven Miles said that the plan addressed the biggest medium-term threat to the reef, which is that of sediment, nutrients and pesticides run-off, and also committed the state to limiting port expansion to four sites.
“I believe that with it we will be able to convince the World Heritage committee that not only should they not list the reef as in danger, but that we will keep the reef from actually being in danger,” he said.
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