14 DAY TRIAL // Throughout the past decades, Australia's mining industry has been steadily yet surely developing. This allowed this country to also export various amounts of coal to other parts of the world where this resource is scarce or perhaps even altogether absent.
Unfortunately, most of Australia's coal exports are done by sea, which means that countless ships make their way over our planet's remaining coral reefs on quite a regular basis.
Environmentalists and conservationists now wish to draw our attention to the fact that said Australian export activities are beginning to take their toll on the natural world, and that the Great Barrier Reef is starting to respond to the ever-increasing number of ships traversing it.
Raw Story informs us that, if things continue to unfold in this manner, an average of 7,000 ships will sail over this part of the ocean yearly.
Of course, this will lead to the natural balance of the marine ecosystems in this region being seriously disturbed.
The same source argues that Australia's coal-rush somehow seems to go against publicly disclosed plans to cut down on pollution and diminish the country's ecological footprint.
Apparently, after looking into this issue and deciding that the Great Barrier Reef is under serious threat, UNESCO has decided to officially ask that Australia give up on the idea of building even more sea ports, at least until the year 2015.
Mark Diesendorf from the University of New South Wales supposedly told the press, “We are greatly expanding coal mining, coal exports, coal seam gas production and other industries which are likely to have very huge impacts, not only on our environment but ultimately on our whole economic future.”
Having recently reported on how ocean acidification is already affecting marine ecosystems worldwide, it seems to us that humane society should perhaps try and do everything in its power to avoid putting an extra strain on our already feeble oceans.