Hunt delivered the 2015 State Party Report on the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area to the World Heritage Committee ahead of its decision on whether the reef should be listed as “in danger” when it meets in June this year.
Hunt said the state and federal governments have “systematically and comprehensively addressed each of the concerns raised by the World Heritage Committee and have embodied its future management intentions in the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, which will drive management of the Reef well into the future”
“Through the projected $2 billion to be invested over the next decade and strong legislation, the Australian and Queensland governments are committed to the ongoing preservation of this natural wonder,” Hunt said in the report he submitted on January 30 in France.
“We have heard the concerns of the World Heritage Committee, and we have acted with renewed vigour. We have responded to all of the recommendations of the Committee and those of the 2012 IUCN and World Heritage Centre monitoring mission.
“In fact, we have gone further, and done so with the valuable support and advice of the World Heritage Centre and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
“Our management responses draw on the findings of the peer-reviewed Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014, prepared by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and the Australian and Queensland governments’ two-year strategic environmental assessment which examined the state of the property and made recommendations for management improvements.”
Outlook 2014 found that that the Outstanding Universal Value and integrity of the property remain in good condition, and Hunt said the system of protection and adaptive management for the property has improved substantially since the property’s inscription on the World Heritage List in 1981.
Outlook 2014 also found that the northern third and southern offshore areas of the ecosystem are in good condition while, in the inshore southern two-thirds, cumulative impacts have resulted in continued deterioration in some areas.
Of these impacts, the report found the long term effects of climate change, and immediate considerations around land-based run-off, coastal land-use change and some aspects of direct use were the most significant.
Hansard reveals Dr Russell Reichelt, chairman and CEO of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, as telling the Senate’s public Environment and Communications References Committee hearing in Townsville in July that more than a million tonnes of maintenance dredging occurs in the reef annually.
“There is on average 17 million tonnes of material coming down the rivers,” he told the hearing.
“It is a very dynamic, active, growing coastline. I think the port expansions need to be managed in a way that keeps their footprint minimal and in which there are fewer, better managed ports.”
Queensland Resources Council CEO Michael Roache said UNESCO’s pending decision in June should prompt the new Queensland government to work with the Australian government to finalise the Reef 2050 plan.
Both the Australian and Queensland governments, in conjunction with a partnership group comprising stakeholder representatives from the resources, ports, tourism, fishing, agriculture, Indigenous, local government, research and conservation sectors, have been working together on the Reef 2050 Plan, which charts a course to improve the health of the Great Barrier Reef over the coming decades.
“The plan that has been developed will demonstrate to the 21-member countries of the World Heritage Committee that Australia (and Queensland) has a strong and comprehensive plan to address threats to the health of the reef,’ Roche said.
Under the plan, port and shipping operations responsible for $40 billion of agricultural, mineral and energy exports each year will continue to operate alongside the reef while upholding the best social, economic and environmental standards.
Roach said an additional priority of the new Queensland government should be the progression of the new port legislation, which will also increase reef protection through a prohibition on significant port development outside the existing long-established port areas at Townsville, Abbot Point, Hay Point/Mackay and Gladstone.
He said that early passage of this legislation would be another strong signal to the World Heritage Committee that Australia has acted decisively to implement the Committee’s recommendations.
