In a bid to help save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney government recently announced a $379 million funding plan. Approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the initiative will help pay for a number of new protection strategies against environmental dangers such as coral bleaching—a long-term problem that has so far destroyed over 900 miles of the world-heritage ecosystem.
Caused by increasing seas temperatures, bleaching is a stress response from the living corals. They expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to lose their vibrant colors, which turns them completely white. Other major causes include a recent outbreak of coral-eating starfish, called the crown-of-thorns starfish. It spreads its body across the coral and releases a digestive enzyme, which slowly breaks it down.
However, the first cause that the government’s funds will aim to change is the surrounding farming practices. Due to the close proximity of sugar cane and cattle farms to the shore, there are large amounts of industrial agricultural waste that pollutes the ocean and smothers the coral. Sydney’s Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg explains that the money will help to introduce better practices “to ensure that the reef doesn’t get the large amounts of sediment, nitrogen and pesticide run-off which is so damaging to coral and which helps breed this crown-of-thorns starfish.”
While some feel skeptical on whether the plan will actually help, the funding initiative is a step in the right direction. Find out more about the Great Barrier Reef on the UNESCO website.
In a bid to help save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Sydney government recently announced a $379 million funding plan.
Approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the initiative will help pay for a number of new protection strategies against environmental dangers such as coral bleaching.
Learn more about the harms of coral bleaching via this video by National Geographic.
h/t: [Green Matters]
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