Government programs have yet to have any positive effect on the Great Barrier Reef, conservationists say, with federal funding only a fraction of what is needed to tackle chemical pollution, conservationists say.

WWF-Australia said the federal budget, the last before Unesco decides next month whether to list the reef as in danger, set aside only $100m to fight runoff into the reef where $500m was needed.

The group said a slight improvement in coral health, flagged in an upcoming report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), was more likely the effect of less flooding over recent times than any rearguard action by government to avoid the Unesco endangered listing.

WWF-Australia’s conservation director, Gilly Llewellyn, said reef protection should have been “made a priority in the budget”.

Another WWF spokesman, Nick Heath, said the Aims report was encouraging but had to be taken in context.



“It’s premature to say it is a trend and it pales in comparison with the loss of over 50% of coral cover in the last 30 years, and up to 70% since the 1960s,” said.

“Unfortunately, there is not yet evidence that government programs have led to any improvement.”

A quote by report contributor Britta Schaffelke that “corals and sea grass are showing an up-kick because we’ve had a few dry years’’, pointed to less flooding as the likelier cause.

“The sad truth is that the reef is still in big trouble and the funding provided by our governments to tackle water pollution is nowhere near what is required,” Heath said.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, in commenting on the upcoming Aims report this week, said that the Abbott government was “doing more than any government before us to protect the Great Barrier Reef”.

Hunt told the Courier-Mail that Australia had addressed every concern raised by the UN’s world heritage committee and set up a reef trust last week specifically to tackle water quality issues.

Heath said the federal government was misleading in its claim to be spending $2bn on improving the reef over 10 years, with almost a quarter of those funds to be spent on “maritime safety”.

“It’s being spent on items like promoting maritime safety and providing a search and rescue service,” he said. “[This is] legitimate spending – but it is not money going directly to bringing back coral, sea grass, turtles and fish.”