Great Barrier Reef choking to death
2001-04-18 14:10
Brisbane - Australia's Great Barrier
Reef risks choking to death on fertiliser-soaked silt thanks to
the clearance of wetlands and rainforests along the
neighbouring Queensland coast, scientists said on Wednesday.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science said research
from 30 scientists around the world showed the World Heritage
listed reef needed urgent help to survive the impact of farming
and other human activities.
"Without fresh thinking and fundamental attitude and
management changes, the Great Barrier Reef will not survive as
we enjoy it today... it will be slowly and continuously
degraded both biologically and aesthetically," Frank Talbot of
Macquarie University concluded in a report published by the
institute.
It said much of the wetlands and rainforests along the
tropical Queensland coast had been cleared for sugar cane
farming, releasing a stream of fertiliser-loaded sediment.
"The sediment run-off is choking the reef; satellite
photography shows huge, muddy planes reaching the mid-reefs,"
the institute's senior research scientist, Eric Wolanski, told
Reuters.
Sediment was one of the biggest threats to corals and many
of those buried in silt were likely to die, he said.
"Terrestrial runoff may have serious indirect and long-term
impacts when acting in combination with storms, coral bleaching
or crown of thorns starfish outbreaks," the report said.
The report looks at the impact of coastal towns, fishing
and farming on the reef, the world's biggest coral structure.
Wolanski said further damage had been done to marine life
and fisheries by the stripping of seagrass beds from
Queensland's coastline.
The report said dugong populations had declined by 50 to 80
percent in the last 10 years, and loggerhead turtle breeding
had collapsed by up to 80 percent in eastern Australia since
the 1970s.
"Activities and decisions in the past decade show
disturbing patterns in the way the Great Barrier Reef is being
managed and there are serious problems which may affect its
long term health," the report said.
"Many basic values of the Great Barrier Reef have been
chipped away... (from) decisions that support development,
tourism and fishing at the expense of the long term protection
of the reef."