Plan to rescue Great Barrier Reef set back about 20 years
Independent report finds that the severity of the damage and the slow trajectory of recovery will hamper the Australian government’s plan to save the coral reef
Sydney — Australia’s plan to rescue the beleaguered Great Barrier Reef has been set back at least two decades after the fragile ecosystem suffered its worst-ever bleaching last year, experts said Friday. The vast coral reef — which provides a tourism boon for Australia — is under pressure from agricultural run-off, the crown-of-thorns starfish, development and climate change. Last year swathes of coral succumbed to devastating bleaching, due to warming sea temperatures, and the reef’s caretakers have warned it faces a fresh onslaught in the coming months. Canberra updated the UN’s World Heritage committee on its Reef 2050 rescue plan in December, insisting the site was "not dying" and laying out a strategy for incremental improvements to the site. But an independent report commissioned by the committee concluded that the government had little chance of meeting its own targets in the coming years, adding that the "unprecedented" bleaching and coral die-off in 2016 was "a game changer...
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