The Australian government has persuaded UNESCO to remove from a major report on global climate change all references to diving destination the Great Barrier Reef – for fear that it would damage tourism.
The effective censorship has been reported by the Guardian Australia, which has also published the excised chapter of the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, covering the GBR as well as two Australian forests.
Unusually warm water has caused bleaching on 93% of GBR reefs this year, as reported on Divernet most recently on 26 April – read here
Australia’s Department of Environment objected when it saw a draft of the UNESCO report, and all references to the country were subsequently removed – the only country to be so treated, says the Guardian. Six months earlier UNESCO had left the GBR off its list of endangered sites at the Australian government’s bidding.
“The department was concerned that the framing of the report confused two issues – the world heritage status of the sites and risks arising from climate change and tourism,” a DoE spokeman told the Guardian. “Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.”
Prof Will Steffen, head of Australia’s Climate Council and a scientific reviewer of the report, commented: “Perhaps in the old Soviet Union you would see this sort of thing happening… but not in Western democracies. I haven’t seen it happen before.”
The excised chapter mentions that tourism, including diving, contributed Aus $5.2bn to the Australian economy in 2012 and supported 64,000 jobs, representing 90% of the economic activity in the region. Some 500 commercial boats took divers and snorkellers out on the GBR and the report mentions that this and general tourist infrastructure can in itself bring negative impacts to fragile corals.
Read the missing chapter of the UNESCO report here
28-May-16
