Government procrastinates while our reef erodes

The wonder and 
brilliance of the Great
Barrier Reef is being
eroded - it will be
reduced to a shadow
of itself within a
decade.

The Queensland Government procrastinates and argues the science of climate change is inconclusive, suggesting the need of more research, while one of the fundamentals of the state’s infrastructure crumbles.

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is disappearing and according to new report there might less than a quarter of it left within a decade.

A story in today’s (October 2) Melbourne Age, headed: “Great reef catastrophe” reports on a long-term investigation by scientists at Townsville’s Australian Institute of Marine Science who found that coral had been wiped out by intense tropical cyclones, a native species of starfish and coral bleaching.

"The big concern going forward is that if nothing else changes then within 20 years the reef could be in a perilous state," said institute senior scientist Peter Doherty.

The sheer brilliance of the Great Barrier Reef is one of the fundamentals of Queensland’s tourism industry.