Great Barrier Reef

• Changes to oceanic waters
• Ground water pollution
• Marine transport infrastructure (Coastal development, including development of ports, shipping lane impacts, grounding of ships)
• Non-renewable energy facilities (Liquefied Natural Gas facilities)
• Marine transport infrastructure (ports)
• Other climate change impacts
• Storms
• Surface water pollution
• Temperature change

N/A

On 1 February 2022, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report, available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/154/documents/, providing the following information:

• The property has experienced a period of recovery since 2019, following consecutive bleaching events in recent years. For important habitats, such as coral reefs, islands, mangroves, coastal wetlands and seagrasses, conditions have either improved or remained stable;
• Coral heat stress and agricultural runoff were recorded as lower than previous years and there have been fewer impacts from cyclones;
• On 20 December 2021, an updated Reef 2050 Plan was released that provides a pathway for accelerated action to conserve the property and commitments to address climate change, land-based run-off, coastal development and aspects of human use of the property;
• Significant funding has been made available to manage and conserve the property, including through the Reef Trust Partnership;
• The property’s water quality has seen improvements towards the 2025 targets. These have been achieved through setting minimum practice standards, building the capacity of land managers to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff, and catchment restoration to reduce soil erosion and land degradation;
• Fishery management is improving, with the implementation of the Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy (QSFS) 2017–2027;
• Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) continue to pressure the property’s central and southern regions but advances in understanding the dynamics of COTS outbreaks, combined with improved detection and culling, allow to better suppress outbreaks and improve coral protection across the property;
• Involvement of Traditional Owners in the management of the property has been strengthened.

From 21 to 30 March 2022, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN undertook a joint Reactive Monitoring mission to the property to assess whether the revised Reef 2050 Plan addresses the threat posed to the property by climate change and determines a pathway for accelerated actions in other areas affecting the conservation of the property. The mission considered information provided by the State Party along with inputs from stakeholders, including civil society. Based on the information at the time, the mission concluded that the property met the conditions for inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The mission report is available at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/154/documents/ On 15 March 2022, the World Heritage Centre sent a letter to the State Party conveying third party concerns regarding reclamation associated with the ports of Gladstone and Townsville and requesting verification of the information. On 26 July 2022, the State Party replied that the potential impacts of the ports on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property have been carefully considered and each project is subject to stringent approval conditions, designed to avoid and mitigate the impacts.

Since the mission, the State Party provided the following updates:

On 13 September 2022, the State Party submitted a report including the following highlights:

• The property recorded the highest level of hard coral cover in the northern and central regions in 36 years of monitoring; a new target of 43% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 has been agreed; funding has been made available to scale up work on coastal restoration to achieve water quality improvements; participation of Traditional Owners in the management of the property has been increased; fisheries management has been improved; and new techniques to restore coral reef habitat have been developed.
• AUS$ 32.6 million has been committed to accelerate climate science and emissions modelling.

On 10 March 2023, the State Party sent an update on the state of conservation of the property, including the following highlights:

• The 2022-23 austral summer season has concluded without a significant coral bleaching event;
• The State Party signed its first Climate Change Act in 2022 that legislates a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 2005 levels by 2030. The target is set as a floor, not a ceiling. The Climate Change Authority is now required by law to provide independent advice and annual updates on progress towards limiting temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The legislation requires the government to consider the advice of the Authority prior to setting future Nationally Determined Contributions;
• In February 2023, the State Party rejected the Central Queensland Coal Mine due to its potential impacts to the OUV of the property;
• The 2020 Reef Water Quality Report Card show continued progress toward meeting the 2025 water quality targets;
• The 2022 annual Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) reported that overall agricultural clearing in 2019-20 had fallen nearly 40% from the previous year;
• The State Party withdrew funding commitments towards the construction of the Hells Gate Dam and the Urannah Dam due to their threat to water quality;
• Regulated minimum practice agricultural standards for grazing, sugarcane and banana production are fully implemented across all priority reef catchments as of December 2022, next phase regulations will bring farming practices in the Burnett Mary region in line with other regions and the compliance programme will be doubled;

• Additional water quality investments have been committed that, along with existing investments, provide funding certainty until 2030 to scale up land restoration and water quality improvements. These include, among others, an AUS$253 million budget uplift for the property’s lead management agency, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority; AUS$ 262.5 million for land acquisitions and capital work to improve vegetation management; and a minimum of AUS$ 100 million for reef protection and restoration with Traditional Owners;
• A major evaluation of water quality investments in the Reef and a water quality prioritisation process was finalized in December 2022 that will inform the next phase of the property’s water quality investments;

• Review of the Reef Scientific Consensus Statement and Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan is underway and will be finalized in 2025;
• An additional AUS$ 62.7 million has been committed to accelerate implementation of the QSFS and strengthen independent data validation on high-risk fisheries;
• The Traditional Owner Implementation Plan 2022 was launched by Reef Traditional Owners on 15 November 2022.

On 6 June 2023, the State Party provided further information, including commitments to:

• Enact with immediate effect a major shift in its water quality programs, including detailed deliverables and timetable, aimed at achieving the 2025 water quality targets and significantly reduce pollutant discharge into the property by 2030;
• Immediately make the hammerhead shark a “no-take” species, establish a net free zone in northern third of the property, finalize implementation of the Sustainable Fisheries Strategy, introduce legislation to mandate the use of independent data validation on all commercial fishing vessels by 31 December 2023, make the property entirely gillnet free by 30 June 2027, and achieve the target maximum economic yield (60% biomass) by 31 December 2027;
• Set more ambitious emissions reduction targets in alignment with efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C and update the Reef 2050 Plan to reflect new commitments and the new legislative framework.

On 5 and 19 April 2023, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN received information on progress about the management of the property from civil society, including WWF-Australia, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, and Earth Justice.

The World Heritage Centre/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission concluded that the OUV of the property is considerably impacted by climate factors, and that the resilience of the property to recover from climate change impacts is significantly compromised, in particular due to degraded water quality and fisheries. The mission concluded that the property’s management frameworks are lacking clear climate targets and implementation measures which are urgent to protect the OUV of the property, and that measures are not fully implemented in relation to water quality and fisheries. The mission set out 10 priority recommendations to be implemented with the utmost urgency, and 12 additional recommendations to further strengthen the resilience of the property. If implemented rapidly, the mission considered these recommendations could greatly improve the conservation of the property’s OUV for future generations.

Since the Reactive Monitoring mission took place, the State Party has made significant progress to respond to the threat of climate change to the property and has made a series of strong commitments to reduce pressures on the OUV of the property from degraded water quality and fisheries, including significant renewed financial commitment until 2030.

The 2020 Reef Water Quality Report Card shows progress toward achieving the 2025 water quality targets. However, this progress remains slow, and significant reductions in the levels of sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen to meet the 2025 targets remain to be achieved. The cancellation of the Urannah and Hells Gate dam projects is welcomed, given their likely negative impacts to water quality in the property. Other in-progress dam developments and future ones need to show clear alignment with water quality improvement for the Reef and require to be assessed in line with the Guidance and Toolkit for Impact Assessments in a World Heritage Context.

The most recent information regarding the State Party’s commitment on water quality measures is welcomed and indicates a further stepping up of commitments to implementation, although also confirms the level of challenge that has been present in achieving the originally proposed water quality targets. These commitments will need to be fully implemented, and the anticipated new targets for 2025-2030 will need to be sufficiently ambitious to reverse the negative trends in water quality and underpin a consistent pathway to recovery.

Agricultural clearing in 2019-20 is reported to have fallen nearly 40% from the previous year, yet still significant clearing activities remain. The remaining native vegetation across the property’s catchments needs further protection, including by strengthening permits for areas of high conservation value. The State Party committed to expand implementation of 2018 land clearing legislation and strengthen protection of remnant and high value conservation areas by July 2024. It is critical that the evaluation of the property’s past water quality investments and water quality prioritization process will result in swift and drastic action toward implementing the mission priority recommendations related to water quality.

The sequence of bleaching events in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2022, the latter of which occurred during a La Niña year for the first time, are of utmost concern. The scale and frequency of the bleaching events have contributed to the status of a number of species that represent key attributes of the property’s OUV being assessed as poor or very poor, including coral and seagrasses, dugong and bony fish. However, the reef is reported to have experienced some recovery following the last bleaching event, and populations of a number of key species are reported as increasing or stable in some instances.

In September 2022, the State Party adopted its first Climate Change Act that legislated a 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 2005 levels by 2030, which is set as a minimum level of ambition, with scope to further reduce emissions levels. As part of its latest updates, the State Party committed to set more ambitious emissions reduction targets in alignment with efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C. The new law requires the Climate Change Authority to provide independent advice and annual updates to the government of Australia on how future targets will help limit temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The legislation requires the government to consider the advice of the Authority prior to setting future Nationally Determined Contributions.

A budget of AUS$ 32.6 million (ca. USD 22 million) has been committed to increase climate science and the Australian Academy of Science has been commissioned to identify priority interventions to protect the reef under plausible climate scenarios in collaboration with the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel and the Reef 2050 Advisory Committee. It is essential that the Reef 2050 Plan is strengthened to limit the impacts of climate change on the property as a result of this process, noting the recommendation of the mission to commit to reduce greenhouse emissions consistent with the efforts required to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. Measures should further include effective carbon credit schemes which benefit the property and further deployment of climate adaptation mechanisms through continued research and increased financial resources.

Overfishing, bycatch, and damage to habitats associated with fishing activity further reduce the resilience of the property and the mission recommended to complete implementation of the QSFS, including adequate seasonal closures for spawning fish species as well as compliance with limits for fishing below the thresholds defined in the strategy and phase out all destructive gillnet fisheries. The State Party has since committed to complete implementation of the QSFS by 31 December 2023, including finalizing all harvest strategies with defined quotas for all key species and achieve the target maximum economic yield (MEY; 60% biomass) by 31 December 2027. Large mesh gillnets are reported to be already prohibited in 38% of the property. The State Party further committed to establish a complete net free zone in the Northern third of the property and strengthen protection for threatened species by 31 December 2023, and ensure the whole of the property is gillnet free by 30 June 2027. Threatened hammerhead sharks are expected to be made “no take” for commercial fisheries with immediate effect. The State Party should be requested to ensure that the commitment to phase out all destructive gillnet fishing is effectively implemented, and the target MEY is achieved, in line with the mission recommendations.

Overall, the commitments the State Party has made to conserve the OUV of the property, in particular in response to the findings of the mission, and the initial actions taken to implement the mission’s recommendations should be noted with appreciation. However, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN consider that the property remains under serious threat and urgent and sustained action to implement the priority recommendations of the mission is essential in order to improve the long-term resilience of the property. A drastic shift in programmes to attain the 2025 water quality targets for fine sediment and dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and the effective implementation of the QSFS and a full phase out of gillnet fisheries in the property are of the highest priority. Measures to ensure carbon credit schemes deliver net benefits to the property and that adaptation mechanisms are deployed at the scale required to avoid loss of OUV should also be deployed.

Based on the progress achieved since the mission, and the range of new, but still recent commitments that have been made and actions initiated, the World Heritage Centre and IUCN consider that it would be appropriate to re-evaluate whether the property meets the criteria for inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger, for consideration, as relevant, at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee.

Finally, it is recognized that no one State Party alone can address the threat of climate change, and that international action is needed by all States Parties as noted in the relevant past decisions of the Committee.