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The UN is slowly warming to the task of protecting World Heritage sites from climate change
UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has issued its strongest decision yet about climate change, acknowledging the worldwide threat posed to many World Heritage properties.
The decision (see pages 26-27 here), set to be adopted today at the completion of the Committee’s annual meeting in Krakow, Poland, “expresses its utmost concern regarding the reported serious impacts from coral bleaching that have affected World Heritage properties in 2016-17 and that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change”.
It also urges the 193 signatory nations to the World Heritage Convention to undertake actions to address climate change under the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature increase to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial temperatures.
This decision marks an important shift in the level of recognition by the Committee tasked with protecting World Heritage properties, apparently jolted by the devastating bleaching suffered by the majority of World Heritage coral reefs around the world.
In the past, the Committee has restricted its decisions to addressing localised threats such as water pollution and overfishing, choosing to leave the responsibility to address global climate change to other parts of the United Nations.
In the preamble to its latest decision, the Committee has recognised that local efforts alone are “no longer sufficient” to save the world’s threatened coral reefs.
But while this is an encouraging progression, some members of the Committee are still struggling to come to terms with addressing the global impacts of climate change. This is despite the impacts becoming more pronounced on other World Heritage properties, including glaciers, rainforests, oceanic islands, and sites showing the loss of key species.
The World Heritage-listed glacial landscape around Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps.
Steinmann/Wikimedia Commons
The ‘jewels’ of marine world heritage
Last month, UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre released the first global scientific assessment of the impact of climate change on all 29 World Heritage-listed coral reefs that are “the jewels in the World Heritage crown”.
The report paints a dire picture, with all but three World Heritage coral reefs exhibiting bleaching over the past three years. Iconic sites like the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), the Northwest Hawaiian islands (United States), the Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), and Aldabra Atoll (Seychelles) have all suffered their worst bleaching on record.
The most widely reported damage was the unprecedented bleaching suffered by the Great Barrier Reef in 2016-17, which killed around 50% of its corals.
The scientific report predicts that without large reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, all 29 reefs will “cease to exist as functioning coral reef ecosystems by the end of this century”.
Reefs can take 10-20 years to recover from bleaching. If our current emissions trajectory continues, within the next two decades, 25 out of the 29 World Heritage reefs will suffer severe heat stress twice a decade. This effectively means they will be unable to recover.
It should also be noted that the majority of World Heritage coral reefs are far better managed than other reefs around the world, so the implications of climate change for coral reefs globally are much worse.
All coral reefs are importantAlmost one-third of the world’s marine fish species rely on coral reefs for some part of their life cycle. There are also 6 million people who fish on reefs in 99 countries and territories worldwide. This equates to about a quarter of the world’s small-scale fishers relying directly on coral reefs.
Half of all coral reef fishers globally are in Southeast Asia, and the western Pacific Island nations also have high proportions of reef fishers within their populations. In total, more than 400 million people in the poorest developing countries worldwide live within 100km of coral reefs. The majority of them depend directly on reefs for their food and livelihoods.
Coral reefs provide more value than any other ecosystem on Earth. They protect coastal communities from flooding and erosion, sustain fishing and tourism businesses, and host a stunning array of marine life. Their social, cultural and economic value has been estimated at US$1 trillion globally.
Recent projections indicate that climate-related loss of reef ecosystem services will total more than US$500 billion per year by 2100. The greatest impacts will be felt by the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on reefs.
Where else?Recognising that the majority of the World Heritage coral reefs are expected to be seriously impacted by climate change is a good start. However, the Committee cannot afford to wait until similar levels of adverse impacts are evident at other natural and cultural heritage sites across the world.
The World Heritage Committee and other influential bodies must continue to acknowledge that climate change has already affected a wide range of World Heritage values through climate-related impacts such as species migrations, loss of biodiversity, glacial melting, sea-level rise, increases in extreme weather events, greater frequency of wildfires, and increased coastal erosion. To help understand the magnitude of the problem, the Committee has asked the World Heritage Centre and the international advisory bodies “to further study the current and potential impacts of climate change on World Heritage properties”, and report back in 2018.
Two of the key foundations of the World Heritage Convention are to protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and to pass that heritage on to future generations. For our sake, and the sake of future generations, let’s hope we can do both.
Jon C. Day previously represented Australia as a delegate to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-2011. He worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority between 1986 and 2014, and was one of its directors from 1998 to 2014.
Energy economics group says export market for Australian coal will decline
Office of the chief economist projects market will grow by 8.7% by 2022, but Institute for Energy Economics says this is based on out of date analysis
As Australia mulls the building of its biggest-ever export thermal coal mine, its biggest foreign buyers look set to reduce their consumption, driving down the price of Australian coal, and the profitability of its mines.
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan together buy about 30% of the world’s exported thermal coal, including 70% of Australia’s export coal.
Continue reading...Exclusive: government inaction leading to increased pollution on Barrier Reef, says WWF
Huge spike in Queensland land clearing destroys ecological communities and habitat of threatened species, according to analysis
The federal government is allowing the huge spike in land clearing in Queensland to destroy threatened ecological communities, the habitat of threatened species and increase pollution on the Great Barrier Reef by failing to enforce environmental law, according to analysis by WWF.
Following the weakening of land clearing laws in Queensland in 2013, the rate of clearing there has tripled to almost 300,000 hectares each year.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson backs 'all-out ban' on ivory sales
Foreign secretary confirms government’s pledge, despite absence from manifesto
A total ban on ivory sales in the UK could still be introduced by the British government, foreign secretary Boris Johnson has said, signalling a possible U-turn that has been welcomed by conservationists.
In their 2015 manifesto the Conservatives promised to “press for a total ban on ivory sales”. But the pledge was quietly taken out of this year’s Tory manifesto, sparking anger among conservation organisations, which say that by allowing the trade to continue, the UK is fuelling elephant poaching.
Continue reading...White whale Migaloo spotted off Australia’s Gold Coast – video
A white humpback whale, known as Migaloo, was spotted swimming off Australia’s Gold Coast on Tuesday. The whale was making its annual migration towards the Great Barrier Reef. Up to 5,000 humpbacks migrate north up Australia’s east coast between April and August each year from waters in the Antarctic to feed and breed in warm tropical waters
Continue reading...First teleportation to low-Earth orbit
Earth already in midst of sixth mass extinction, scientists say – video report
The scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has reported that the Earth is already in the stages of the sixth mass extinction, which will see the world’s wildlife and plants die out. The research found that species, including those which are not endangered, had reduced in number due to habitation shrinkage, hunting, pollution and climate change
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UK households binned 300,000 tonnes of clothing in 2016
The good news is that we are using our tumble driers less, the bad news we are chucking our unwanted clothes in the bin rather than recycling them
The carbon footprint of the UK clothing sector is worsening, a new report reveals, driven by the ongoing popularity of cheap and cheerful “fast fashion” and a shortage of sustainable raw materials.
Although the amount of clothing being sent to landfill has fallen by 14% from 350,000 tonnes in 2012 to 300,000 in 2016 a staggering one-quarter is still binned rather than recycled. That is down from 31% four years ago.
Continue reading...The Indigenous community making art from garbage – video
On Pormpuraaw beach on the west coast of Cape York peninsula, plastic fishing nets have been washing up on shore – some kilometres long. Killing hundreds of species of marine life, the ‘ghost nets’ threaten a valuable food source for the local community. So Pormpuraaw artists are fighting back, gathering other refuse from a local tip dubbed ‘Bunnings’ and weaving it through the nets to create stunning large-scale sculptures of ocean-dwelling totems. The art, which carries on tradition and raises awareness of the plight of local animals, also provides a valuable export industry. The film-maker David Varga spent time with the artists involved. Watch his full-length video here
Continue reading...‘Guardian of the forest’ routinely culled in Madeira
The Trocaz pigeon is a vital seed-disperser in one of the world’s rarest forest ecosystems, but its taste for cabbage has put it in direct competition with humans. Guess who wins?
As we hike through the cool, low-canopied forest along a levada – a centuries-old water canal carved out of the mountainside – our guide talks effusively of a pigeon.
It’s the “guardian of the forest” the guide with MB Tours tells me and the other hikers. Known as the Trocaz pigeon, or alternatively the laurel pigeon or the long-toed pigeon, it’s only found here: on the Portuguese island of Madeira. We halt under an ancient laurel tree and the guide explains that the endemic pigeon is vital to Madeira because it disperses many of the plants found in this unique forest ecosystem: the laurisilva.
Continue reading...Forget cats and dogs – caterpillars make the best pets | Patrick Barkham
• Patrick Barkham is a Guardian writer
Butterflies are ubiquitous in our culture, via dresses, prints, cards and tattoos, but the humble caterpillar is surely overdue a revival. Whenever I’ve paused by a sizeable nettle patch this year, I’ve found them – writhing balls of black peacock caterpillars and black-and-fluorescent-lime small tortoiseshells. Less conspicuous are red admirals, which neatly stitch together two sides of nettle leaf and live inside a little tent.
I’ve seen Twitter pictures of freshly flailed nettle patches that had harboured hundreds of caterpillars, which will now never become butterflies. Enhanced caterpillar-consciousness would halt such destruction.
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Young falcons graduate from flying school
West Sussex Over a few short weeks the peregrine chicks have grown from ungainly youngsters into aerobats like their parents
The piercing calls coming from above, high up on the chalk cliff, reveal that there are still peregrine falcons at home. Four chicks have fledged, and over the course of a few short weeks I’ve been watching them grow from ungainly youngsters, flapping in short, clumsy flights across the cliff face, to become stronger aerobats like their parents. The mother soars overhead, her tail fanned out, and slowly banks and turns back towards the cliff, calling again, the sun catching her grey and white face. The young birds – brown with heavily streaked breasts – answer, their voices sounding more like squeaks than the piercing shrieks of the adult.
In the past week, both parents have been enticing the chicks to follow them by carrying prey in their talons, which they give to the young mid-air. When they all leave the nest site, probably some time in the next few weeks, the adults will teach them how to hunt live prey – birds in flight – over the Downs.
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