Save the Great Barrier Reef

[Cuppa]

5 million tonnes of dredge spoil has been approved for dumping in World Heritage Area Reef waters. This will create untold damage as the enormous toxic water borne cloud spreads & blocks light, killing the coral.


Please will you consider being part of the citizen-funded legal fight to protect our Reef?


Your help is needed now.


Donating is very easy, & only takes a minute or so. Just go HERE (https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/great-barrier-reef--3/legal-fighting-fund/fight-for-the-reef?t=dXNlcmlkPTEzOTE0LGVtYWlsaWQ9MzY4Mw==)


I believe this to be an opportunity to not only make a last ditch effort to save the reef, but also, as Australians, to tell our Governments in no uncertain terms that enough is enough.


You don’t have to be a ‘greenie’ to recognise what is happening. Even Blind Freddy can see that our children’s heritage is being taken in rapidly increasing quantities, all in the name of short term profit for the few who are quite prepared to leave our great country an industrial rubbish dump.


You can donate from $1 upward. Every bit will help. I have donated in the hope that I won’t have to look back & think “I wish I had tried".

Thanks,
Cuppa

[Ben-e-boy]

That dollar would be better spent to get rid of the crown of thorn starfish which is a much bigger threat than a bit of sediment

[Cuppa]

That dollar would be better spent to get rid of the crown of thorn starfish which is a much bigger threat than a bit of sediment

Don’t want to get into argument, we will have to respectfully agree to disagree.
I see 5 Million tonnes ias a tad more than a BIT which can cover an awful lot of reef, & it will only take a thin covering to block out the light that the coral needs to survive. I guess without the coral the Crown of Thorns Starfish will become an irrelevancy.

The mining companies could very easily dump their waste on land, rather than in the sea, but this would reduce their profits a bit, being a more expensive option.

[Drewboyaus]

The Crown Of Thorns starfish has breakouts in population size generally related to major flood events and the poor quality of water around the reef that follows. They are useful part of the ecosystem on the reef in their normal population size, keeping the faster growing corals in check.
One of the key drivers of starfish population size is poor water quality and I wonder if the dredging spoil could actually make the starfish situation worse.
Having seen the damage the Port Phillip Bay dredging has done down here (after assuring the public nothing would happen), I seriously mistrust anything a government has to say on these types of projects.

[Oldmate1]

You only have to look at what went on in Gladstone.allot of barra got sores would not surprise me if when they do testing they do it when the tides have the least amount of run that way they make the case studies look better

[threedogs]

aren't parts of the reef dying anyway from that toxic bloom or 2 degree rise in water temps

[mudnut]

"Who can stand in the way, when a dollar can be made..." Midnight Oil.

[Drewboyaus]

aren't parts of the reef dying anyway from that toxic bloom or 2 degree rise in water temps

There has been some die-back of the reef due to the warming of the ocean but I'm not sure whether giving up on preserving it is the right thing to do.

[jack]

I've dived the GBR on eight different occasions over the past 12 years, mainly the ribbon reefs on the outer GBR along the continental shelf between Cooktown and Cape Trib. Our dive club has nearly 100 members and some have been diving the reef for over 30 years and have 100's of accumulated dives there. The general consensus is that the inner reef is slowly dying and the main reason is global warming (or whatever you want to call it), the coral is whitening and cannot tolerate temperature change. This unfortunately is increased by silting from flood water run-off, the coral does regenerate but not quickly enough. This is the main reason I dive the outer reefs, less damage more to see.

The crown of thorns starfish is a native species and there have been four plagues since 1960, there is currently one starting up near Cooktown, over a million starfish spread over 100 kms and it's moving south with the currents. To date it is accepted that they are responsible for 40% of coral death over the last 30 years. As the largest living organism on this planet, normally the reef can cope and regenerate from this. But each outbreak is getting worse and this is attributed to fertiliser runoff from floods, soon it won't be able to regenerate. As a native species it is impossible to remove or control the crown of thorns on the reef without damaging some other part of it. Even if you could remove it, the ecosystem will be changed forever and we will have a new threat appear and be back to step 1. They currently control it in the major dive spots for the tour operators with poison injections.

We have only really been monitoring the reef for the last 30 odd years and everything points to both the crown of thorns and silt run-off as two of the biggest threats, this is accepted as fact by all reputable authorities and the Federal Government (both major parties).

Currently the GBR is under extreme stress from warming, run-off and crown of thorns. This is only going to increase with 5,000,000 tonnes of sediment being dumped into it. This will spread with the currents and cover a huge area, the weakened state of the reef will then be more susceptible to die back and crown of thorns attack.
We had dredging in Port Phillip Bay and the government, port authority and experts all guaranteed it would not affect the bay. Ask any diver and resident on the Mornington Peninsula how wrong they were. Previously the GBRMPA was against dumping silt on the reef, I hope this doesn't have the same outcome as the introduction of Rabbits, Cane Toads and Prickly Pear.

[threedogs]

There has been some die-back of the reef due to the warming of the ocean but I'm not sure whether giving up on preserving it is the right thing to do.

I never said give up on saving the GBR, all I pointed out was that toxic bloom and GW were killing parts of it