Great Barrier Reef operators sign-up for 'The Last Straw' to tackle plastics

More than 30 tourism operators in Cairns and Port Douglas have signed-up to ban plastic straws at businesses within the Great Barrier Reef.

The 11 billion pieces of plastic in Asia-Pacific
oceans are tipped to increase 40 percent by 2025.

Founder of The Last Straw on the GBR, Nicole Nash, who is also a marine biologist, said plastic straws are ending up in the bellies of turtles and other marine life.

"Straws are something that people don't think twice about using," Ms Nash said.

Read the ABC News story by Kristy Sexton-McGrath - "Great Barrier Reef operators sign-up for 'The Last Straw' to tackle plastics.”

Bleaching claims one-third of northern and central coral reefs

More than one-third of the coral reefs of the central and northern regions of the Great Barrier Reef have died in the huge bleaching event earlier this year, Queensland researchers said.

Corals to the north of Cairns – covering about two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef – were found to have an average mortality rate of 35 per cent, rising to more than half in areas around .

The study, of 84 reefs along the reef, found corals south of Cairns had escaped the worst of the bleaching and were now largely recovering any colour that had been lost.

Professor Terry Hughes, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said he was "gobsmacked" by the scale of the coral bleaching which far exceeded the two previous events in 1998 and 2002.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “'Huge wake up call': Third of central, northern Great Barrier Reef corals dead.”

Bleaching will change the reef forever - Prof Hughes

Professor Terry Hughes - "This will
change the reef forever."

An aerial survey of the northern Great Barrier Reef has shown that 95 per cent of the reefs are now severely bleached — far worse than previously thought.

Professor Terry Hughes, a coral reef expert based at James Cook University in Townsville who led the survey team, said the situation is now critical.

"This will change the Great Barrier Reef forever," Professor Hughes told 7.30.

"We're seeing huge levels of bleaching in the northern thousand-kilometre stretch of the Great Barrier Reef."

Of the 520 reefs he surveyed, only four showed no evidence of bleaching.

From Cairns to the Torres Strait, the once colourful ribbons of reef are a ghostly white.

Read the ABC story - “Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching at 95 per cent in northern section, aerial survey reveals.”

Many aren't listening as the gamble goes on

Those who need to hear and understand the warnings of the disruption climate change will bring are not listening, or if they are, they believe it is so distant that the impact is not worth worrying about.

An example of this was discussed just this morning on Radio National’s “Background Briefing” in an episode entitled: “Cairns mega casino gamble”.

The story told of proposals to build the $8.5 billion Aquis Casino just 25 kilometres north of Cairns at Queensland’s Yorkys Knob and the many controversies surround the idea.

The proposed casino is to be built on a piece of land likely that is subject to tidal surges and, along with that, is a host of environmental issues, worsened by a jump of an anticipated 50 000 people in what was, or had been, a quite backwater.

But in terms of climate change, it is not the understandable and easily addressed environmental issues that really matter.

Rather, what matters is that the whole concept is driven by, and depends upon fossil fuels, which will not only become rarer as the decades unfold, but they are the root cause of climate change.

Further, something such as a casino is about consumption and rather doing and creating processes that encourage even more consumption, we should uilding governance structures that frustrate and illustrate the foolishness of such ideas in a constrained world.

It’s worth spending 40 minutes to hear about this northern Queensland madness.