Great Barrier Reef
The end of 2013 gave rise to a gloomy outcome for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for the new year. The Australian federal government approved to dump 3 million cubic meters of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Park. If you are not familiar with dredging, it is essentially the oceanic version of highway building. Large machines are used to dig out sediment from the sea floor in order for large ships to travel trough. Where does all of the sediment that they dug out you might ask; well, this is where the spoil comes in. Spoil is all of the dredged material that these large machines dig out and all of this material is going to be dumped in to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef is a monumental place for Australia; it is the largest living formation on planet Earth. The reef has a very diverse ecosystem housing all sorts of organisms from coral, fish, sharks, sea turtles, jellyfish, and whales; just to name a few. The Great Barrier Reef Park is 345,000 square kilometers, which is bigger than the United Kingdom and Ireland combined! For Australia the reef is great for the economy because it is a tourist attraction; people come from all over the world to see this amazing, beautiful place.
Australian officials stress the fact that the dumping location site only consists of sand, clay, and silt, no coral reefs or seagrass beds. However, the issue with ocean currents potentially moving all of this sediment to the reef is a major issue. If the sediment moves on top of the reefs the sediment could smother and kill off the coral. In 2012, a government-funded study showed that over the past 27 years, the reef had lost half of its coral. With this information authorities are making sure that the spoil goes through testing to not disturb the water quality and house any harmful microscopic organisms.
Many conservation agencies like Greenpeace are outraged with the decision that Australian authorities have made. Richard Leck, the Australian spokesman of World Wildlife Fund stated that “it is a sad day for the reef and anyone who cares about its future,” when the decision was made to allow the dumping. Some conservation agencies have created petitions to stop the dumping from happening; however signatures are still needed for this effort.
If you want to help preserve the future for the Great Barrier Reef, you can go to http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-dumping-on-the-great-barrier-reef and sign the petition to try to stop this incident.