Attachment
The question is now being urgently asked, “Why is the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest reef system, still being used as a ‘coal highway’ by commercial shipping?”
Between 1987 and 2002, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority there have been approximately 282 confirmed vessel spills in the Great Barrier Reef Heritage Park area. Recently a Chinese ship, the Shen Neng 1, ran aground when it decided to take a shortcut through the reef. It is leaking oil into the waters and is dangerously close to breaking apart. Should this happen it would result in 1,000 tons of heavy fuel oil being dispersed into the ocean, which would take many weeks to clean up. A rescue operation is now underway.
Other dangers to the reef include, overfishing near the reef, climate warming and the introduction of foreign marine species.
Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times last year that once carbon dioxide reaches the levels predicted for 20 years from now, coral reefs will be doomed to extinction. Rising sea temperatures lead to coral bleaching, which eventually kills the coral.
Agricultural run-off, with the wide use of pesticides, poses a further lethal threat to coral reef systems. The amount of sediment running off the land onto the Great Barrier Reef has quadrupled during the past 150 years.
It is acknowledged that hull fouling and ballast water discharge has introduced more than 250 different foreign marine species into Australian waters. Many of them are a threat to the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.
The world’s largest reef system is home to more than 30 species of marine mammals, six of the world's seven species of threatened marine turtle, 1,500 species of fish, 359 types of hard coral, one third of the world's soft corals, 5000 to 8,000 molluscs and thousands of different sponges, worms, crustaceans, 800 species of echinoderms and 215 bird species.
It will be too late to attempt to make amends, once the great lungs of the ocean have been destroyed.
About Great Barrier Reef Again Threatened By Grounded Chinese Vessel
For more information:
Feel free to contact Wendy on admin@youmesupport.org
Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO's of YouMe Support Foundation (http://youmesupport.org) provide high school education grants for children who are without hope. You can help in this really great project by taking a few minutes to check out the Sponsor a Student program at Win a Resort (http://winaresort.com). It really will change your life.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
