Green group fights sand dump permit near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
Activists campaign against Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority decision to grant permit allowing dumping of millions of cubic metres of sand near the Great Barrier Reef
Environmentalists launched an appeal on Thursday to overturn a permit granted for an Australian coal port to dump millions of cubic metres of sand near the Great Barrier Reef, arguing it fails to protect the World Heritage Site.
An independent agency charged with protecting the reef granted a permit in January for 3 million cubic metres of soil dredged up at the port of Abbot Point to be dumped about 25km from the reef.
The approval by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) sparked outrage among green groups opposed to coal expansions and fighting to protect the reef, as well as marine tourism operators, who help generate US$5 billion a year.
The North Queensland Conservation Council filed a challenge to the permit at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Brisbane on Thursday.
The port is being expanded for US$16 billion worth of coal projects planned in the untapped Galilee Basin by two Indian firms, Adani Enterprises and GVK, and Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, projects actively opposed by Greenpeace.
The reef authority’s decision to grant the permit came a day before the Australian government sent a report about the reef to Unesco that said: “There has been a serious decline in hard coral cover in the southern two-thirds of the region.”
