The largest living ecosystem, the Great Barrier
Reef, stretched 1,430 miles along Australia’s coast is ‘dead or dying and almost all of it is
on the brink of extinction’, said the scientists. The scientists have also
warned the health of the ecosystem, assessing it’s increasingly bleaking
conditions.
In another publication from the Australian ministry,
the corals of the Great Barrier Reef is also suffering from bleaching- a
condition leaving the coral to push out the algae inside, making it white. Apart
from the outrageous effect of global warming, the strong El Nino is also
playing a master role in bleaching and death of the corals.
Professor Terry Hughes, conveyor of the National
Coral Bleaching Taskforce that conducts aerial exhibition of world heritage
sites, said: “We've never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In
the northern Great Barrier Reef, it's like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at
once.” Hughes also added that almost 50 percent of the total coral is already
dead or dying.
Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt, in this
context, asserted: “There were some who said that the worst had passed. We
rejected that, and they were wrong.” Even the UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee
that denied the Great Barrier Reef in the endangered list but continued their
concern for its future.
Environmentalists across the globe, who accounted global
warming and El Nino as the reason behind the loss, also have considered the
usage of coal and coal-fire in Australia as long term reason.
The Great Barrier Reef is a location to draw in a
huge amount of tourist, in a fear of tourism business loss, are reluctant to
publish the bleached pictures of the corals. The tourism companies even have
barred the entry of media and politicians in the bleached area fearing its
impact on tourism, said reports. Apart from the environmental impacts and
tourism affects of bleaching, half a billion people from Australia is dependent
for their livelihood on the corals and as many as $30 million people’s income
is at stake, said reports.
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