Australia: Great Barrier Reef avoids UNESCO list of endangered sites

The Great Barrier Reef is not placed in the list of endangered sites by Unesco following intense lobbying from Australia.

© SARAH LAI / AFP

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2 min

Despite UNESCO's recommendation made public in June, the World Heritage Committee has just decided not to place the Great Barrier Reef on the list of endangered sites.

While all member countries have recognized the devastating effects of climate change on the world's largest coral reef, they have chosen to give Australia a reprieve.

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With our correspondent in Sydney,

Grégory Plesse

The multiple diplomatic visits of the Australian Minister for the Environment in recent weeks from Madrid to the Maldives have finally paid off.

The Great Barrier Reef, despite numerous scientific reports attesting to its deterioration caused by global warming, was ultimately not classified as an endangered site.

Professor Ove Hoegh Guldberg, deputy director of the ARC Center of Excellence for Reef Studies, laments this decision: “

 We need to wake up and recognize that this ecosystem is in danger and this is what makes the ranking on the list of endangered sites is so important. Because it is a mechanism which makes it possible to draw attention to this problem and to solve it. You don't fix anything by putting it under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist. It is a doomed strategy. 

"

Yet it is the one adopted by Australia ahead of this deadline, preferring to accuse Unesco of being under political influence.

But Australia, which per capita emits three times more greenhouse gases than the average of the G20 countries, won only one reprieve.

She has six months to produce a new report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef.

And his case will be reviewed again at the next World Heritage Committee meeting in 2022.

► To read also: Save the Great Barrier Reef thanks to the eggs and sperm of the corals

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