1 . The Great Barrier Reef in Queensland has suffered several mass bleaching events due to the impacts of climate change. The Australian government turned down a proposal for a new open-cut coal mine near the Great Barrier Reef, considering environmental laws and the risk of “irreversible damage”. It was the first time the government had used its powers under environmental laws to reject a mine.

In turning down the project, Tanya Plibersek, the minister for the environment and water, cited significant potential environmental dangers to the reef, which is already heavily threatened by climate change.” The risk of pollution is real and the damage to the reef, once done, will never be repaired. “The project would have had unacceptable impacts on freshwater in the area and potentially on fragile seagrass meadows,” Plibersek said in a video posted on social media. She said that during the public consultation period, her department had received 9,000 public comments about the mine in just 10 business days.

The government has been under pressure from UNESCO to better protect the reef and in 2022, it pledged one billion Australian dollars for efforts to protect the fragile ecosystem, including climate adaptation measures and water quality programs. Last year, the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches for more than 2,300 kilometers, experienced its sixth mass bleaching event, due to warming waters caused by climate change.

The government, elected in 2022, came to power promising stronger action on the climate in a country still heavily depending on fossil fuels. But its climate policies are rated “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker, which found Australia is not on course to meet targets to limit warming to 1. 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The government has rejected calls from the country’s Green Party to turn down all new fossil fuel projects.

2 . John “Charlie” Veron-widely known as “the Godfather of Coral Reef (珊瑚礁)”-is a celebrated expert who has personally discovered nearly a quarter of the world’s coral species and has spent the past 45 years diving Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. But now the 73-year-old is raising the alarm about its future. The Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders, is 2, 300 kilometers long and is the only living organism that can be seen from space. It is considered a World Treasure Site due to its biodiversity (生物多样性)with 30 species of whales, dolphins and sharks. Within the reef itself, there are also a number of tiny organisms and fishes.

However, its health is threatened. After the recent mass bleaching (白化)events, Veron dived in many areas of the Great Barrier Reef to see the damage for himself. “I was seeing and feeling it and it was absolutely shocking, ” he says.

Veron says the mass bleaching events in the past few years-and the possibility of losing one of nature’s greatest treasures-were a wake-up call for the world in the wider battle against climate change, which, together with the rising sea temperature, is considered the greatest threats to the reef.

Fortunately, earlier this year, the Australian government announced nearly 400 million dollars in new funding towards scientific projects designed to help the reef.

There has been criticism in Australia about the slow process for the funding. “It won’t be wasted, though,”Veron says. “As scientists will be able to create a sort of seed bank to protect the species until the climate is good enough to rebuild the reef. What the scientists hope to do is to help nature along a bit after the big carbon dioxide increase is over and it starts to come down.”