26 June 2024
Topics: Great Barrier Reef avoiding UNESCO ‘in danger’ listing
E&OE
Adam Stephen:
Tell UNESCO to bark up another tree if they want to save the Great Barrier Reef from the worst of human induced climate change, that’s the message from the Shadow Federal Environment Minister to Tanya Plibersek as Australia and Queensland digest the draft decision not to list our Great Barrier Reef as in danger of losing its World Heritage status while supporting the removal of gill nets and efforts to tackle crown of thorns starfish. The draft decision called for greater climate action if Australia wants to keep our Great Barrier Reef off the list long term. Liberal Senator Jonno Duniam says Australia needs to get a backbone when dealing with UNESCO. He’s saying that they should be making the same demands of higher polluting nations if they’re serious about wanting to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Senator Duniam:
We should always do the best we can to manage our emissions and protect our environment and the impact humans have on the environment, minimise that impact. But I don’t think, given we are just over one per cent of global emissions, that we should completely throw out the window economic and social considerations in pursuit of emissions reductions. Yes, we should do what we can, but we must do it sustainably and achievably without driving up the cost of power, without making Australia an uncompetitive place to do business. And in terms of our contribution to global emissions through the export of coal or gas to other jurisdictions, we’re actually helping countries like India lift poverty-stricken communities into the middle class by providing them cheaper power. I would like to see more of that happen. Yes, we should minimise our impact on the environment. We should also lift our brothers and sisters overseas out of poverty through provision of resources like the ones we do. So we have to balance all of these things up, responsibilities we have as global leaders, as a leader in this region in particular and custodians of the Reef, and UNESCO don’t take that into account, they are putting all responsibility on us and they’re asking us to cut our emissions even further, even though in terms of what we generate here in Australia is just to touch over one per cent. Frankly speaking, we could shut down every heavy industry in Australia and it wouldn’t change the impact on the Reef from warming waters. The problems lie overseas and I think it is unfair for UNESCO to continue to push this back on to us solely and this is where I think we need to get balance into our response in these things. I hope UNESCO hear what we have to say and I hope the government stand up for Australian communities, households, the businesses that depend on the Reef and not talk it down and make it more difficult for our country as a result of acquiescing to UNESCO.
Adam Stephen:
We did see dozens of fishing families lose their livelihoods. They will be compensated but they lost their, you know for some, generational jobs when gillnets were effectively removed from the Great Barrier Reef waters. There are still some but they’ll only remain for the next four years. The majority of gill nets now out of Great Barrier Reef waters. This was an action the federal and state governments took it as a recommendation from UNESCO, that action they took, and it was in the report highlighted as something that was good to protect and save the Great Barrier Reef, despite the nets not actually being used on the Great Barrier Reef. We’re told that they do kill and injure threated and endangered species though fishers dispute to the level that is. That action that was taken, in hindsight, do you think that’s probably one of the main reasons we’re not on the ‘in danger’ list at the moment?
Senator Duniam:
Well I mean, obviously UNESCO prescribed that as one of the actions that must be taken in order to protect the Reef. The process that was gone through to get to the outcome we reached was lacking to say the very least when you speak to fishers and the communities they’re part of. Those jobs will go. They’ll never come back. No amount of support or incentivisation will ever bring those jobs and economic activity back to those communities and as you point out, they weren’t directly impacting on the Reef. And this is what I think we need to actually probably muscle up a little bit when it comes to what UNESCO and others say we must do. On ground, in community, in water science observations of exactly what’s happening and taking into account the views of those who know what they’re about – the fishing industry in this case – I think would be an important factor for these missions that come and observe what’s going on to take into account before they start prescribing to us what we should or should not do.
Adam Stephen:
As I understand, the monitoring mission that came for those ten days didn’t meet with a single fisher. A representative of the Queensland Seafood Industry Association was invited to a roundtable but didn’t attend, so they didn’t actually hear from, they heard from Queensland fisheries, but they didn’t actually go out and visit any of the gill netters or speak directly to them.
Senator Duniam:
And this is the problem, can I tell you. With the best of intention in the world to protect the Reef, they come, they observe, they have referenced in many of their reports the third party actors that are providing them advice, many of them environmental activist groups. They don’t get out and understand firsthand whether or not claims of the ones they referenced with regard to gill nets and the impacts on endangered or threatened species, they don’t go and stress test this stuff. They don’t go out and check whether it is fact yet it finds its way into their report and recommendations as a high priority and then we as a government find ourselves, if we’re trying to avoid making our way onto the ‘in danger’ list, acquiesce. So this is not good process which is why I’m making the call for our government to instead of just blankly and blindly signing up to what UNESCO say we must do, challenge that, moderate what we do, protect the environment, reduce emissions but have a thought for and consideration for the communities affected by these decisions. In this case it was the gill net fishermen and women and the communities they’re a part of and they economically support. When it comes to further and harder emissions reductions, yes, we should do everything we can to do that but there is a cost to that. UNESCO don’t care what cost that is. The Australian Government should, and this is where their job comes to the fore.
Adam Stephen:
You’re hearing from Senator Jonno Duniam, he is the shadow environment minister and also the shadow fisheries minister and just discussing the news of the week, UNESCO has recommended not to list the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’ to preserve its status as a World Heritage Site which has been roundly applauded. Conservation groups are saying we need to do more to tackle climate change or the Reef could end up on the ‘in danger’ list at some point. Tanya Plibersek, the environment minister, was at pains to point out that this is a great bit of news because tens of thousands of jobs depend on the Great Barrier Reef having World Heritage status. Would you concur that that’s the case? Do you think that if it had lost its World Heritage status, that’d be it for Reef tourism?
Senator Duniam:
Well, I’ll tell you what tens of thousands of jobs on the Reef depend on, Adam, and that is people not talking it down. I mean the age old saying from anyone who worked in the tourism industry in Australia is that most visitors came to see the Reef, the rock and the bridge. That is the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I know things have changed a bit, but the Reef is iconic and they don’t go on a TripAdvisor to check what’s on the UNESCO World Heritage List and, you know, work out their travel itinerary from there. But I tell you what, if they are getting reports that the Reef is dead, that it is badly managed, that the government don’t care, then of course they’re going to start making bookings to go somewhere else in the world or in the country, and that’s what jeopardises these jobs. And again, it’s great for Tanya Plibersek to come out and celebrate the fact that it isn’t on that list, but there is going to come a time where the demands of UNESCO, which frankly sometimes are left wanting as we’ve already discussed, cannot be met and then we might find ourselves on that list. This is why we need to stand up and say, ‘well hang on, no, we’ve got this under control’, and it was only a year or so ago that we had the Australian Institute of Marine Science in all of their time of record keeping say that we had record levels of hard coral cover. That’s the sort of news we should be sharing but most visitors don’t hear it. So again, it comes down to talking up what we do and why we do it and how well we do it. But you know, World Heritage listing is not one of those things people look at when they’re booking their trips.
Adam Stephen:
So that was Senator Jonno Duniam. He is a Liberal senator and shadow spokesman for the environment fisheries as well, and just giving his views on what we learned yesterday. A draft decision by UNESCO not to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger of losing its World Heritage status, which he applauds but he says Australia needs to push back on suggestions. That we’re not doing enough to tackle climate change. And well, in his mind anyway, we’re such a small contributor to global emissions.