'These Areas Are Too Precious': New Pictures Reveal The Impact Dredging and Dumping has on Australia's Great Barrier Reef
- A ship was photographed dredging in Cairns
- The images reveal the impact the activity has on Australia's Great Barrier Reef Heritage Area
- Lissa Schindler from the Australian Marine Conservation Society has spoken out against the activity, warning it will destroy the tourism and fishing industry
By Marielle Simon for Daily Mail Australia. Posted 23 October 2014
New pictures show the effects dredging and dumping has on Australia's Great Barrier Reef Heritage Area, after a ship was photographed dredging in Cairns' waters, north-Queensland.
Dredging removes sediments from the bottom of harbours, lakes and rivers. It is also used to avoid the spread of contamination that could pose as a risk to fish, wildlife and people.
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Lissa Schindler from the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) said these images reveal the impact dredging has on our waters, which is a problem that extends across the whole Great Barrier Reef Coastline.
'There are proposals for millions of cubic metres of dredging from new projects that could be dumped in Reef waters,' Ms Schindler said.
She said the act of dredging needs to be maintained, therefore once it starts it can never stop.
'The current proposal to build a new cruise ship terminal in Cairns would involve 4.4 million cubic metres of capital dredging to establish a larger shipping channel, which would require a significant amount of maintenance dredging every year after that,' she said.
Ms Schindler insists this type of activity destroys the environment and will eventually affect tourism and the fishing industry.
'It’s vital we protect the 63,000 jobs and $6 billion the Reef brings to the QLD economy by creating a sustainable approach to the environment, jobs and the economy.'
Ms Schindler pointed to the beauty of these areas like the Great Barrier Reef and said they were too 'precious' to be used as a dumping ground for rocks and muds.
AMCS is an independent charity that aims to protect Australia's ocean wildlife.
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New pictures of a ship undergoing routine dredging in Cairns
The images show how dredging and dumping can destroy our oceans, like the Great Barrier Reef
Dredging removes sediments from the bottom of harbours, lakes and rivers and it is also used to avoid the spread of contamination that could pose as a risk to fish, wildlife and people
Lissa Schindler from the Australian Marine Conservation Society said these images reveal the impact dredging has on our waters and extends across the whole Great Barrier Reef Coastline
Once you begin dredging the activity has to be maintained and continued
Ms Schindler insists this type of activity destroys the environment and will eventually affect tourism and the fishing industry
Currently, there is a proposal to build a new cruise ship terminal in Cairns. This would involve 4.4 million cubic metres of capital dredging to establish a larger shipping channel
MORE:
Great Barrier Reef on Brink of Devastation in Relentless Quest for Coal
Sydney Morning Herald. Posted 23 October 2014
The Queensland and federal governments' mining push is a catastrophe in the making, writes Dr. Helen Caldicott and Reese Halter.
"A war is being conducted against nature on our reef."
The rampant destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, given the green light last February by the federal government, epitomises the values of our modern world. "Economic development" and "jobs" reign supreme while our reef, one of the seven wonders of the world, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is in great jeopardy.
Home to endangered dugongs, glorious endangered sea turtles and corals, it is seething with life rich in biodiversity containing many potential medications to treat cancer and other diseases. The preservation of this unique treasure is now secondary to the voracious greed on the part of Queensland and federal governments and some individuals to export coal.
By 2030 Australia is predicted to increase its export of coal from 240 million tonnes this year to 787 million tonnes in 2030. Queensland's liquefied natural gas and coal exports are soaring in order to deliver atmospheric-warming carbon fuels to satisfy Chinese and Indian markets.
The ports of Gladstone and Abbot Point are poised to become the busiest in the world. In 2011, the shipping industry alone increased our export trade coffers by $38 billion. In 2012, 3950 ships entered these Great Barrier Reef ports and these numbers are set to treble by 2030.
A war is being conducted against nature on our reef. All countries by international law are required to protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems as well as the habitat of depleted, threatened or endangered species. But in Queensland since the 1960s the plant-eating dugong population has plummeted by over 97 per cent in the quest to feed ravenous energy markets and to promote urban coastal growth. Dugongs depend on sea-grass meadows to provide them with food. Those saline meadows also offer crucial habitat for a wide array of plants and other sea life, including sea turtles.
This fecund zone is of cardinal importance for not only cycling nutrients that sustain all coastal sea-life, but it protects the reef from land-based toxicity that enters the sea. The reef's magnificent natural shield has been impregnated. The acidification of the ocean as a result of global warming further compromises the structure of the corals.
Then there is the problem of noise. The Queensland and federal governments are aware that noise pollution can have a detrimental effect on oceanic wildlife including all the biological processes that take place within the reef itself. Whales, dolphins, sea turtles and dugongs are at risk from noise pollution as they incur cardiovascular and autoimmune stresses. Animals ranging from blue whales to the coral clown fish cease feeding and noise pollution prevents mating.
Yet no government noise regulation has been imposed on industry to curtail the final death knell for Earth's greatest reef.
The 2012 United Nations World Heritage meeting in Paris warned of the deadly consequences associated with increasing noise pollution associated with shipping, sub-sea construction and the use of exploratory sonar which causes mass stranding of whales and dolphins. The UN convention on Law Of The Sea states that all countries are to lessen under-sea noise pollution, including vessel noise and sub-sea construction equipment.
But as well as noise pollution, the ongoing damage is extraordinary. To create three liquefied natural gas terminals on Curtis Island near Gladstone, 21 million tonnes of material were dredged. This irreparably destroyed the seabed, enormous plumes of sediment were released, fish were killed en masse and the bund wall containing land-dumped dredging was breached, causing a vast toxic algal bloom.
Meanwhile, Environment Minister Greg Hunt has authorised the Abbot Point port to dredge 3 million tonnes from the seabed to create six new coal ship berths.
These developments signal the beginning of ongoing massive port constructions adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. And what are we doing in the face of this catastrophe?
We are devastating an extraordinarily beautiful natural wonder so we can heat up the planet and in the process destroy many forms of life.
Great Barrier Reef -(As it Used to Be) -Nature's Miracles =FULL Documentary: