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UNESCO Panel Recommends Listing Australia's Great Barrier Reef as 'In Danger'

VOA News

   A special committee with the United Nations's cultural agency says
   Australia's Great Barrier Reef should be placed on a list of World
   Heritage sites that should be designated as "in danger."

   The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's
   World Heritage Committee, or UNESCO,recommended the
   2,300-kilometer-long coral reef system should be placed on the list
   because it has deteriorated due to climate change.

   Australian officialsdenouncedthe recommendation.Environment Minister
   Sussan Ley said Tuesday that Canberraopposes the designation and
   accusedthe World Heritage Committee of "a backflip on previous
   assurances"and thatit would not take such an action before its formal
   meeting next month.

   Ley said she and Foreign Minister Marise Payne had spoken by phone to
   UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay about the decision, which she
   called "flawed" anda decisioninfluenced by politics.

   "This sends a poor signal to those nations who are not making the
   investments in reef protection that we are making," she said.

   But Richard Leck, the head of oceans for World Wide Fund for
   Nature-Australia, said in a statement the recommendation "is clear and
   unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to
   protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change."

   The Great Barrier Reef is the world's biggest coral reef system that
   brings an estimated $4.8 billion annually in tourism revenue.

   Climate change has driven temperatures in the Coral Sea higher in
   recent decades, leading to three mass "bleaching" events since 2015,
   destroyingat least half of the Reef's vibrant coralsandprompting the
   Australian government to downgrade its long term outlook to"verypoor."

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