This political ad urges people to fight for the Great Barrier Reef after the government announced it would dump dredge spoil in the World Heritage site. Courtesy: Fight for the Reef

WHEN Australians think of the Great Barrier Reef they probably think of holidays, swimming and snorkelling but the real driver of the economy is mining, an industry that is more dominant than you think.

The question is, are Australians happy for mining profits to trump protection of one of the world’s natural wonders of the world - the Great Barrier Reef?

The expansion of the coal port at Abbot Point is causing so much controversy that this week the Federal Liberal MP for Dawson, George Christensen, withdrew his support for the dumping of dredge spoil in the marine park, announcing “I got it wrong”, in an advertisement in the Whitsunday Coast Guardian.

MORE BELOW: The reef in numbers

MORE BELOW: Will it go ahead?

It comes as new research conducted in Western Australia and released last month proved for the first time that there is a link between the dredging required to expand ports, and devastating coral disease.

The impact of coral disease has been seen in the Caribbean, where it has diminished coral cover by as much as 95 per cent in some areas.

The risks to the reef from port development and associated dredging has even prompted the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to express “concern” and “regret” at the Federal Government’s approval of the project.

UNESCO says Australia is not doing enough to protect the reef and has threatened to place it on the List of World Heritage in Danger if problems are not addressed within a year.

Mr Christensen said he wanted to see the Abbot Point port expansion go ahead and believed it was “perfectly environmentally sound” but acknowledged that his confidence was not shared by the tourism industry in the Whitsundays and other areas.

In a statement released yesterday he said: “Their livelihoods have already been affected as I’ve heard information coming from the tourism sector that there’s been a 30 per cent decline in bookings from Europe since the Greens started their campaign against Abbot Point”.

The port expansion is related to the development of the new Carmichael Coal Mine, which will be one of the largest in the world and one of a number of projects planned in the Galilee Basin. It is owned by Indian mining giant Adani, which wants to ship the coal through Abbot Point.

A spokesman for Adani said it was confident that the mine would be an enduring provider of more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, as well as $22 billion in taxes and royalties.

However, dredging will be required to create three new terminals at the port and the dredge spoil was to be dumped 8km south of Holbourne Island in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Activists were worried this could impact the corals but also that it would result in a decline in water quality for the thousands of tourists that visit the reef every year.

Mr Christensen said he now wanted to explore land-based options for the dumping of dredge spoil as a way of moving forward.

“There’s 5000 jobs alone with the Carmichael mine, there would be jobs with the expansion of Abbot Point, there are jobs with the constructions and operation of the railway line - and these are jobs that are crucial.”

In total, GVK Hancock chief executive Darren Yeates has said that the Galilee coal projects would create 20,000 jobs and generate more than $40 billion in taxes and royalties.

It was reported by Four Corners this month that there was a chance that the Abbot Point dumping approval could be reopened.

But when asked to confirm this, a spokeswoman for the Federal Department of Environment, said only that the project’s conditions of approval would ensure coral reefs were not exposed to the high sediment and turbidity levels from dredging, which had been shown to impact corals in Western Australia.

The spokeswoman told news.com.au that the conditions of approval had restricted the original 10 week dredging campaign to between March 1 and June 30.

The original proposal for three million cubic metres of dumping had also been reduced down to a maximum of 1.3 million cubic metres in any calendar year.

And disposal of sediment can only be dumped more than 40 kilometres away from “significant coral reefs”.

The spokeswoman said this contrasted with the Western Australia dumping, which was 5-10 kilometres from the reefs and was part of an 18-month dredging campaign.

“In summary, the conditions of approval will ensure that coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not exposed to periods of intense or chronic sediment deposition, that have the potential to increase the prevalence of coral disease.”

There is no doubt the stakes are high for the mining sector, as well as the tourism and environmental sectors.

At the moment the value of goods shipped from ports next to the region, from Cape York to Lady Elliot Island, is about $40 billion each year.

While the government insists that the expansion of coal ports can be managed with minimal impact to the Great Barrier Reef, environmentalists are not so sure.

“We are talking about one of the most iconic, well loved natural features on the planet,” Australian Marine Conservation Society Great Barrier Reef campaign director Felicity Wishart told news.com.au.

“We would say there has already been too much compromise.”

There are already 12 ports in the area and four of these have active proposals to expand their operations. This is happening exactly at a time when the reef is in decline, particularly in the south of the region where the dredging for the port at Abbot Point is proposed and which will see it triple in size.

According to the Outlook Report 2014 from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, there has been a continued deterioration in the overall health of the reef since 2009 when the last assessment was done. This is due to many reasons including climate change, coastal development and land-based run-off, which has been linked to an increase in coral eating crown-of-thorns starfish.

But unlike these other factors, Ms Wishart said dredging was one thing that could easily be controlled.

“It is harder to stop climate change or fertiliser run-off into the reef, but we can stop dredging with the stroke of a pen,” she said.

If all the proposed port expansions go ahead, an additional 5.7 million cubic metres of dredging will take place, on top of the 300,000 cubic metres of “maintenance dredging” already occurring every year.

To put this in perspective, the total volume of dredge material (from both capital and maintenance dredging) disposed in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area over 12 years between 2001 and 2013, was about 28 million cubic metres.

Ms Wishart said the value of creating these extra ports was also debatable due to a downturn in the value of resources and she said she didn’t think there was a need for them.

“We don’t want to see the development of a white elephant, we would rather see the reef protected and jobs already in existence protected.”

“The reef is under our watch, it’s our generation, our time, there’s no one else, we have to do the right thing.”

THE REEF IN NUMBERS:

• About 80 per cent of the world’s seaborne metallurgical coal exports are from Queensland, and they are shipped through the Great Barrier Reef.

• The value of goods shipped from ports adjacent to the region is approximately $40 billion each year.

• In 2011-12, the reef contributed an estimated $5.6 million to the Australian economy and supported the jobs of 69,000 people. However, the total economic value has not yet been calculated as most ecosystem services of the reef have not been determined.

• Surveys have found that 85 per cent of Australians are proud of the reef’s world heritage status and 44 per cent have visited the reef.

• More than 1.5 million signatures have been collected on petitions expressing concern around dredging and dumping during 2013.

• Despite the steady increase in shipping activity, the number of reported ship groundings and collisions has remained relatively stable in recent years. However, when they do happen, the reef can take decades to recover, as in the case of the grounding of Shen Neng I, which damaged about 115,000 sq metres of reef when it ran aground in 2010.

• In January 2014, a proposal for Abbot Point was approved to dispose of 1.3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil. Proposals involving sea disposal in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area that are currently under assessment include (but are not limited to): Cairns shipping development project (5 million cubic metres); Townsville port expansion (5.7 million cubic metres); and expansions of the Dudgeon Point coal port facility (up to 13 million cubic metres) and the Port of Gladstone (up to 12 million cubic metres, with 20 million cubic metres already approved).

WILL IT GO AHEAD?

The Federal Minister has approved the dredging for Abbot Point, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has also issued a permit for the dumping of dredge spoils in the sea, but both these approvals are subject to appeals.

The minister has also asked that alternative sites to dump the dredge spoils be considered.

The sea dumping is being challenged by the North Queensland Conservation Council in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Mackay Conservation Group is appealing the dredging aspect under federal environmental laws in the Federal Court.

There is also a campaign from Fight for the Reef, an amalgamation of groups including the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF-Australia, to stop the mining companies getting finance to develop their proposed new mines and associated port expansions.

Banks such as HSBC, Bank of Scotland and Barclays have indicated they won’t finance the project because of threats to the reef and Deutsche Bank has pledged that it will not entertain “financial applications” for the port development because there was no consensus between the Australian Government and UNESCO over the environmental impacts.

When asked whether the delays would be likely to see it abandon the plans, an Adani spokesman told news.com.au it was “confident that every component of the project will progress well to ensure we meet our longstanding first coal guidance of 2017”.

“It’s worth noting that the port at Abbot Point is already operating, and has been doing so for 30 years, safely and without incident,” he said.

“The port’s expansion is the subject of some of the most stringent environmental conditions and safeguards on foot in this country, overseen by the Environment department and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, to ensure this opportunity is balanced by the recognised need to protect our local environment.

“Adani has said consistently that we will be guided by the best science, the best advice, and best practice in dredge disposal options.”

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If you are interested in opposing the decision, Fight for the Reef advises people to email Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt.