Tag: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Climate change biggest threat to natural World Heritage sites

by Nina LARSON Agence France-Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — Climate change has become the biggest threat to UN-listed natural world heritage sites like glaciers and wetlands, and has pushed Australia’s Great Barrier Reef into “critical” condition, conservationists said Wednesday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed in a new report that shifts due to the changing climate now imperil a full third of the 252 UNESCO-listed natural sites around the globe. Overall, 94 […]

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Many corals dead or dying on Barrier Reef: scientists

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — At least 35 percent of corals in the northern and central regions of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are dead or dying from a mass bleaching event, scientists said Monday. The assessment was made following months of aerial and underwater surveys after the worst bleaching in recorded history first became evident in March as sea temperatures warm. Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the […]

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‘Now or never’ to save Barrier Reef: scientists

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could be beyond saving in five years without “now or never” funding to improve water quality as climate change ravages the World Heritage-listed site, scientists warned Thursday. The world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem is under pressure from not only climate change, but farming run-off, development and the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish. The biodiverse side off the Queensland state coast is also suffering its worst bleaching in recorded history […]

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Coral bleaching hits 93% of Great Barrier Reef: scientists

by Madeleine COOREY SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is suffering its worst coral bleaching in recorded history with 93 percent of the World Heritage site affected, scientists said Wednesday as they revealed the phenomenon is also hitting the other side of the country. After extensive aerial and underwater surveys, researchers at James Cook University said only seven percent of the site had escaped the whitening triggered by warmer water temperatures. “We’ve never […]

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