Original story at The NewsPort
Michael Roche, Chief Executive of the Queensland Resources Council, speaks out on the Great Barrier Reef debate.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke’s dissection of the debate surrounding the future for communities along 80 percent of the Queensland coastline is welcome acknowledgement of what residents have known for a long time.
The Great Barrier Reef. PHOTO WWF
As reported, Minister Burke says there are two Great Barrier Reef campaigns – one a genuine effort to make sure the values of the iconic World Heritage Area are preserved and a second to shut down Queensland’s coal and gas industries.
Queensland’s leading export industries are minerals, energy, food, fibre and tourism. Together they contribute around $40 billion a year to the economy. What’s that mean? That’s about 10 times what has been committed by any Australian Government to upgrade the Bruce Highway and just shy of total revenues collected last year by the Queensland Government.
Along with the operators of the 11 commercial ports incorporated into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area 32 years ago, these industries have co-existed with the reef under the scrutiny of state, federal and international environmental agencies. In hindsight, their inclusion in the World Heritage Area in 1981 was a masterstroke in placing an enduring focus on ecologically sustainable development.
Reef-based industries know they will be judged harshly if they do not have the highest levels of environmental protection in their planning and operations. It is this reality that continues to drive positive changes to fishing, agriculture, tourism and port practices.
Almost 80 percent of Queensland’s exports are now traded through the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area ports of Gladstone, Rockhampton, Hay Point, Mackay, Abbot Point, Townsville, Lucinda, Mourilyan, Cairns, Cape Flattery and Quintell Beach. These ports are also lifelines for almost one million Queenslanders for imports including oil, general cargo and tourist shipping.
Shipping movements in the Great Barrier Reef are the most closely monitored in the world. Thanks to expanded monitoring and sophisticated technology, the number of shipping incidents has fallen from one per year to less than one per decade while the rate of shipping has grown incrementally.
Technology enhancements keep pace with traffic, just as they do at international airports. Queensland has a vested interest in ensuring that the past 32 years of managed interaction between the Great Barrier Reef and adjoining industries and communities thrives.
Queensland’s exports are now traded through the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area ports, including Gladstone. PHOTO Coastal Care
The only people campaigning to see the Great Barrier Reef declared ‘in danger’ by UNESCO are environmental activists – largely funded by international groups such as Greenpeace.
Their goal is to shut Queensland’s export coal and gas industries down at the same time Asia is trying to lift billions of people out of the energy poverty trap and modernise. Activist scaremongering over proposed port dredging and shipping deliberately ignores the scientific documentation of cyclones, Crown of Thorns starfish invasions, coastal run-off and the impacts of climate change as major threats.
At 348,000 square kilometres and bigger than the UK, Holland and Switzerland combined, the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area’s ecologically sustainable development is a challenge that Australians have accepted since the reef’s declaration as a Marine Park in 1975. Over those almost 40 years, scientifically informed and carefully managed outcomes have served the reef and Queensland communities well.
The future demands renewed commitments to continuous improvements in environmental stewardship.
It does not mean the sacrifice of one global value for another to appease activists with the attention span of an election campaign.
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