The Northern Great Barrier Reef Response Plan, marked “draft” and “confidential”, begins by describing the bleaching event as “the worst ever coral bleaching” and attributes its cause to climate change. The Great Barrier Reef: a catastrophe laid bare Read moreIt says the plan will be “nested under the Reef 2050 plan”, which is a document the federal and Queensland governments created to convince Unesco not to include the Great Barrier Reef on its “world heritage in danger” list. One group is “new initiatives to boost recovery” and the others are activities that have either been in place for a long time, were enacted as part of the Reef 2050 plan, or were introduced since the Reef 2050 plan. A Queensland government study found $8.2bn needed to be spent over 10 years to reach water targets set in the Reef 2050 plan. Australia will provide its status update on the Reef 2050 plan to Unesco on 1 December 2016.”

Source: The Guardian November 29, 2016 19:07 UTC