Australia Proposes to Expand Commercial Fishing in Marine Sanctuaries

[Sea Save Foundation]

The percent of Australia’s marine reserves open to commercial fishing is proposed to go up from 64 to 80. Australia would be the first nation “to wind back its ocean protection measures.” The proposal is open to public comments and could be implemented as early as 2018. The Australian government is also considering cutting down funding for marine protected areas and “introducing blue zones to permit underwater oil and gas mining.”

Read more here (article #3).

 

[kelemvor]

What is wrong with Australia's government? Sheesh.

 

[scubafanatic]

Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-2016)

(an excerpt below)

.......
No one knows if a serious effort could have saved the reef, but it is clear that no such effort was made. On the contrary, attempts to call attention to the reef’s plight were thwarted by the government of Australia itself, which in 2016, shortly after approving the largest coal mine in its history, successfully pressured the United Nations to remove a chapter about the reef from a report on the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites. Australia’s Department of the Environment explained the move by saying, “experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism.” In other words, if you tell people the reef is dying, they might stop coming. ................