UNESCO chides Australia over Great Barrier Reef proposal

The Chinese host of this yr’s assembly of the UN, World Heritage Committee on Sunday defended the physique’s proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” towards Australian authorities suspicion that China influenced the discovering for political causes.
The committee, which is assembly each nearly and within the Chinese metropolis of Fuzhou for the subsequent two weeks, will take into account the draft resolution on Friday.
“Australia, as a member state of the World Heritage Committee, should … attach importance to the opinions of the advisory bodies and earnestly fulfill the duty of World Heritage protection instead of making groundless accusations against other states,” mentioned Tian Xuejun, the Chinese vice minister of schooling and the president of this yr’s session.
The UNESCO committee will take into account including new websites to the World Heritage checklist, taking some off and including others to the in-danger class. A draft resolution to place Venice on the in-danger checklist prompted the Italian authorities to ban cruise ships from the lagoon metropolis in a bid to keep away from the designation.
Tian, talking on the first information convention for the reason that conferences opened final Friday, mentioned the Great Barrier Reef proposal was primarily based on knowledge from Australia and proposals from an advisory physique.
Australia reacted angrily when the draft was launched final month.
“This decision was flawed. Clearly there were politics behind it,” Environment Minister Sussan Ley mentioned, with out mentioning China by title.Relations between the 2 nations have soured in recent times, with Australia blocking Chinese know-how and funding in key infrastructure, and China utilizing tariffs and different measures to scale back its imports from Australia.
Australia was warned in 2014 that an in-danger itemizing was being thought-about for the Great Barrier Reef, which was designated a world heritage website in 1981.
The draft resolution mentioned that Australia’s long-term plan for the reef, a community of two,500 reefs overlaying 348,000 sq. kilometers (134,000 sq. miles), “requires stronger and clearer commitments, in particular towards urgently countering the effects of climate change.”

“We acknowledge very much the work which has been done in Australia, but our text in the draft decision … is a proposal for putting the site on the list of world heritage in danger because of the threats which were identified,” mentioned Mechtild Roessler, the UNESCO director of the World Heritage Committee.
Ernesto Ottone Ramirez, the assistant director-general for tradition at UNESCO, mentioned that an in-danger itemizing needs to be considered as a collective name for motion from all of the member states.
“It’s something that should be seen as something positive and not, as what we heard from some of the authorities in other countries, as a punishment,” he mentioned, becoming a member of the information convention from Paris. “It’s how we preserve our heritage for future generations.”