Resources
Mother Nature Network
05 September 2013
Across the globe, reef-building corals live in symbiosis with algae, which provide the animals with food and their iconic brilliant color. But environmental stress — high temperatures, in particular — can kill corals by causing them to "bleach," a process in which they lose their vital algal friends and turn ghostly white.
Brisbane Times
17 October 2013
Dredging to develop major ports will be banned across the majority of Queensland's coast for a decade to help improve the health of the reef.
Deputy Premier and State Development Minister Jeff Seeney says while the state needs to do business, the Great Barrier Reef must not be put at risk. Read more
ABC News
02 September 2013
Health authorities hope a new tuberculosis (TB) screening program in the Torres Strait will help address concerns about the disease spreading from Papua New Guinea.
From this week, the local health service will survey residents on Saibai and Boigu islands to help clinicians identify and treat potential cases. Read more
The Conversation
06 August 2013
Northern futures, northern voices: It seems everyone has ideas about how Australia’s north could be better, but most of those ideas come from the south. In this six-part weekly series, developed by the Northern Research Futures Collaborative Research Network and The Conversation, northern researchers lay out their own plans for a feasible, sustainable future.
Recently, Australia’s north has featured front-and-centre in national debates about the country’s future; the election campaign will likely see more claims about what the north can do for the country. Read more
Northjersey.com
14 September 2013
NORMANBY ISLAND, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Katharina Fabricius plunged from a dive boat into the Pacific Ocean of tomorrow.
A bleak portrait emerged: Instead of tiered jungles of branching, leafy corals, Fabricius saw mud, stubby spires and squat boulder corals. Snails and clams were mostly gone, as were worms, colorful sea squirts and ornate feather stars. Read more
Blue & Green Tomorrow
27 March 2014
As human activities make the oceans more acidic many marine species are increasingly being put at risk, including populations of fish that people around the world rely on for food, scientists have warned.
Speaking to the BBC, in an investigation for Newsnight by environment analyst Roger Harrabin, experts warn that rising levels of CO2 are a major threat to aquatic ecosystems. Read more
9 News
08 November 2013
Federal MP Clive Palmer says a massive dam storing contaminated water at his Queensland nickel refinery is meeting environmental regulations after claims it is at risk of overflowing.
The Australian newspaper is reporting that a Department of Environment briefing note shows the Queensland Nickel Yabulu Refinery (QNI) near Townsville is operating outside "spill risk" limits due to a failure to increase its capacity. Read more
Brisbane Times
21 August 2013
Judging by the positions taken by all major parties contesting the federal election, everyone wants to save the Great Barrier Reef. Even those unmoved by the beauty of the coral labyrinths and marine life recognise the huge economic benefit the reef brings, which includes $5 billion in cash and 63,000 permanent jobs as a direct result of tourism and research.
Coral cover has shrunk by half since 1985, inshore reefs have declined 34 per cent in the last eight years, and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish are becoming common, fed by farm runoff from the Queensland coast. Read more
Environmental Research Web
05 July 2013
Current pesticide risk assessment falls short of protecting biodiversity.
Washington/Leipzig/Sydney. The pesticides, many of which are currently used in Europe and Australia, are responsible for reducing the regional diversity of invertebrates in streams and rivers by up to 42 percent, researchers report in the Proceedings of the US Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Mikhail A. Beketov and Matthias Liess from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, together with Ben Kefford from the University of Technology, Sydney and Ralf B. Schäfer from the Institute for Environmental Sciences Landau, analysed the impact of pesticides, such as insecticides and fungicides, on the regional biodiversity of invertebrates in flowing waters using data from Germany, France and Victoria in Australia. The authors of the now-published study state that this is the first ever study which has investigated the effects of pesticides on regional biodiversity. Read more
ABC News
14 January 2014
A conservation lobby group says it has been overwhelmed by community opposition to a proposed major dredging project in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
The park's authority has until the end of January to decide if it will issue a permit for three million cubic metres of dredge spoil to be dumped into the reef to allow the expansion of the Abbot Point Coal Terminal near Bowen. Read more