Coral Regrowth Won't Save Reef

Recent News

Item 1: Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Site

The Australian Government must give detailed consideration to the proposed endangered listing of the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage Endangered List. Citation on that List is not however the end of the Reef’s world heritage standing, but may be part of its revival. I recall the annoyance of President Bush senior at the inscription of both the Everglades and Yellowstone Park on that List, but later to see the positive and unheralded work of his son when President of the United States in working with the Word Heritage Secretariat in Paris to address the reasons for those adverse inscriptions effectively. Both are now greatly improved and truly universal heritage places. One issue that appears to be different in this case is the claimed external climate change impact; it is difficult to see why governments which have world heritage conservation programmes as Australia does can be blamed for a problem of universal concern happening in their backyard. The Endangered List to date has not been viewed as existing to address policy challenges of that type. That is not a reason for not addressing the challenge; but it may be a reason for opposing the inscription in this case.

Item 2: Blue Mountains World Heritage Site

The current debate regarding the extension of the wall of the Warragamba Dam as a flood mitigation proposal, with admitted adverse consequences for the conservation of the natural heritage on the site, should be rejected.

Warragamba Dam was never built as a flood mitigation tool, rather it was designed to cater to Sydney’s growing water needs in 1960. The infrastructure giant remains one of the largest domestic water supply dams in the world, catering to an area four times the size of Sydney Harbour and storing 80 percent of Sydney’s water.

Critics of the project, including The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and local Indigenous communities, are against raising the Warragamba Dam wall as it would mean inundating a portion of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area that surrounds the dam’s large Lake Burragorang reservoir, as am I.

While Warragamba Dam releases water before major flooding events, doing so is a tricky science. For example, to avoid the dam spilling during the March 2021 flooding event, levels would have needed to be lowered to 35 percent of storage, or 2.5 years’ worth of water supply for the Greater Sydney region. That water would have needed to be released over several days prior to the rain event and had the storm not occurred, such a release could have plunged Sydney into an artificial drought. The environmental offsets needed will also push the project’s price tag above $1.6 billion. Ms Chung addresses the issues in the article attached.