China's UNESCO Representative Defends Move To List GBR As "In Danger" After Repeated Bleachings
The Chinese host of a United Nations world heritage committee has defended a proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”, and rejected Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons. It came as the Morrison government sought to use a new report by Australia’s marine science agency to argue there had been widespread coral recovery on the reef.
The report, by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, found coral coverage along the 2,300km reef had increased after a year of benign conditions without high ocean temperature or cyclones. But it also said the new corals growing in the wake of three mass bleaching events in the past five years were of a fast-growing species that could be quickly wiped out by storms, ocean heatwaves and coral-eating starfish.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) world heritage committee is meeting both virtually and in the Chinese city of Fuzhou for the next two weeks. Consideration of the draft recommendation the reef be listed “in danger” is expected on Friday. Tian Xuejun, the Chinese vice minister of education and the president of this year’s committee meeting, told a media conference the change was based on data from the Australian government and recommendations from an advisory body. “Australia, as a member state of the world heritage committee, should … attach importance to the opinions of the advisory bodies and earnestly fulfil the duty of world heritage protection instead of making groundless accusations against other states,” Tian said, according to a report by Associated Press.
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The Australian Institute of Marine Science examined the health of 127 of the Great Barrier Reef’s 3,000 reefs between August 2020 and April 2021. In northern parts, coral cover had increased from a low of 13% in 2017 to 27%. The highest for the region was 32% recorded in 1998. In central parts, coral cover was at 26%, up from 14% in 2019. In the south, coral cover on the 20 reefs surveyed was at 39%, up from a low point a decade ago of 11%. Dr Mike Emslie, who leads the monitoring program, said much of the increase in coral cover was thanks to Acropora corals. He said they were “fast to grow” but also “often the first to go” “They are susceptible to cyclones, coral bleaching and are the favourite food for crown-of-thorns starfish,” he said.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/19/chinese-unesco-official-defends-plan-to-list-great-barrier-reef-in-danger
