Environmental groups yesterday urged greater action on climate change after the Australian government declared the highest alert level over an epidemic of coral bleaching in the pristine northern reaches of the nation’s Great Barrier Reef.
The Australian government on Sunday said that corals had turned white and grey in parts of the World Heritage-listed marine park, with the bleaching “severe” in northern areas.
Environmental group the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) said large sections of coral near Lizard Island were drained of all color and fighting for survival.
Photo: Reuters
“The reef can recover, but we must speed up the shift to clean, renewable energy and we must build reef resilience by reducing runoff pollution from farms and land clearing,” WWF spokesperson Richard Leck said. Bleaching occurs when abnormal environmental conditions, such as warmer sea temperatures, cause corals to expel tiny photosynthetic algae, draining them of their color.
Corals can recover if the water temperature drops and the algae are able to recolonize them.
“The pictures we are seeing coming out of the northern Great Barrier Reef are devastating,” said Shani Tager of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. “The Queensland and federal governments must see this as a red alert and act accordingly.”
Tager called on the government to reconsider coal mining, saying the burning of the fuel is “driving climate change, warming our waters and bleaching the life and color out of our reef.”
Australian Minister of the Environment Greg Hunt, who inspected the area by air on Sunday, said three-quarters of the reef is experiencing “minor to moderate bleaching.”
He said that while the bleaching is nowhere near as bad as in 1998 or 2002, in the top quarter, north of Lizard Island, it was severe.
Jodie Rummer, a senior research fellow at James Cook University, said after spending 40 or so days at Lizard Island that the situation is “not good at all.”
Rummer said that while the northern parts of the reef are among its most beautiful and pristine, they have also been hard hit by cyclones in recent years, which have caused structural damage to the coral.
“Certain areas that are typically 100 percent coral cover — which is a really healthy reef — are almost 100 percent bleached now; so it is quite disturbing,” she said. “It is quite sobering to think that this is the wake up call that we are getting to take better care of our environment.”
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