Will the House and the Senate manage to roll back that infamous $487 million grant to a greenwashing charity, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation

Last year mainstream media reported that Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull (former director Goldman Sachs), Minister for Environment and Energy & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (former director Deutsche Bank Australia) and Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation & Member of the Business Council of Australia John Schubert (former chair Commonwealth Bank) met on 9 April 2018 to discuss the allocation of a grant valued at in excess of AU$487.6 million to the foundation.

The grant had not been advertised or put to tender.

It was further reported that Great Barrier Reef scientists were told they would need to make “trade-offs” to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, including focusing on projects that would look good for the government and encourage more corporate donations, emails tabled in the Senate reveal.

A Senate report of the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program has just been published here.

The question now is will the Senate and the House bring on a vote to reverse this grant?

The Guardian, 14 February 2019:

The Senate committee looking at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation $444 million grant has handed down it’s report.

From Peter Whish-Wilson:

The Senate Environment & Communications References Committee inquiry report into the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program was tabled today by the Chair of the inquiry, Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

Senator Whish-Wilson said, “This was the Senate at its best, acting swiftly and working cooperatively to scrutinise, in full, government policy of significant public importance.

“This grant was a desperate attempt to cover up this Government’s legacy of reef mismanagement, years of chronic underfunding and disregard for climate change, in the context of an imminent World Heritage ‘in danger’ listing.

“It was clearly a political decision made with no consultation, due diligence or regard for proper process.

“It’s a textbook case of how not to implement public policy, and a perfect example of why we shouldn’t trust the future of a dying reef to a government intent on outsourcing public policy.

“This report and its recommendations are a good opportunity to press reset and build the best blueprint for future reef management, in full consultation with all stakeholders.

Some of the conclusions from the Committee were:

 “The granting of $444 million to the Reef Foundation was a highly irresponsible decision, hastily concocted by relevant ministers, without proper consideration of risks and potential effectiveness, no consultation with key stakeholders, and without having undertaken due diligence.”

 “This ‘off-the-cuff’ decision has caused massive disruption to existing policy and program delivery, including by existing government agencies. It has all the hallmarks of a government that is not properly managing its responsibility as the guardian of the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef.”

 “There were widespread concerns about “whether the Foundation was the right organisation to manage such a significant investment,” including “the Foundation’s ability to handle such a rapid increase in size and responsibilities, the high cost of administration, and the duplication and governance complexities the Partnership introduces.”

 “The most appropriate action for the Commonwealth to take is to terminate the Foundation Partnership. The committee believes this is necessary to help restore trust in the process of Commonwealth funding for the Reef, if not the entire Commonwealth grants process. The committee also considers that this is necessary to ensure that Commonwealth funding is spent in the best possible way to help protect and preserve the world’s largest coral reef system.”

And the recommendations:

o   That all unspent Foundation Partnership funds be returned to the Commonwealth immediately; and that these funds be earmarked for expenditure on projects to protect and preserve the Reef, to be expended by 30 June 2024.

o   That a review, to be completed by 1 July 2019, be undertaken of the structure of Commonwealth funding to protect and preserve the Reef; the committee further recommends that the expenditure of unspent Foundation Partnership funds be guided by the outcome of this review.

o   That the Australian and Queensland Governments publish an updated Reef 2050 Plan Investment Framework that provides current figures on established funding by source and priority area.

o   Should a future Government decide to maintain the Foundation Agreement, the committee recommends that all necessary steps be undertaken to ensure that the Foundation’s investment of public funds precludes investment in sectors or funds that directly or indirectly contribute to climate change, particularly companies that generate energy from or undertake mining of fossil fuels.

o   Should a future Government decide to maintain the Foundation Agreement, the committee recommends that the Senate order: That — (a) There be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, by no later than 31 October each year; (i) an annual performance statement for the previous financial year that provides information about the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s performance in achieving the purposes of the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program; and; (ii) independent and audited financial statements for the previous financial year for all receipts and payments relating to the Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program funds, including any co financed contributions; (b) If the Senate is not sitting when a statement is ready for presentation, the statement is to be presented to the President under standing order 166; (c) This order has effect until the end of the last financial year in which the Agreement is operative, following the cessation of the Partnership.

o   Should a future government decide to maintain the Foundation Agreement, that the Auditor-General undertake a second audit of the Partnership in late 2019–20 once the final design aspects of the Partnership have been finalised.

o   That the Australian Government take steps to address and effectively tackle climate change as an underlying cause of economic, social and environmental damage to the Reef and the Australian environment more broadly.

BACKGROUND

See:
https://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com/search?q=the+Great+Barrier+Reef+Foundation&max-results=20&by-date=true

A trio of Great Barrier Reef Foundation directors decline to appear before a senate committee inquiry

On 19 June 2018, the Senate referred the 2018-19 Budget measure Great Barrier Reef 2050 Partnership Program to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report on 15 August 2018.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation made a written submission on 2 July 2018.

Yesterday it sent one of it newest directors (who apparently joined the board in the second half of 2017) and its managing director to give evidence before the inquiry.

However, three directors are seeking to avoid attending this inquiry  - John M Schubert (Chair), Grant King and Paul Greenfield.

This unwillingness is likely to be less about scheduling problems and more about close associations with petroleum, gas, mining* and finance industries, the foundation's membership list as well as the identity of donors who gave over $1.4 million to the foundation in 2017.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 2018:

Three directors of a Great Barrier Reef charity entrusted with almost half a billion dollars in public money have refused to give evidence to a Senate inquiry scrutinising the controversial deal, raising the prospect they will be forced to appear.

Confidential Senate committee documents seen by Fairfax Media show that despite being offered five dates at which to attend the inquiry, the directors of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation say they are unavailable for questioning, variously citing overseas travel commitments, medical appointments, board meetings and other unspecified engagements.

The inquiry was launched following the Turnbull government’s decision to grant the small, business-focused charity $443 million to help rescue the reef.  The foundation has previously said it would “fully co-operate” with the probe.

The contentious Great Barrier Reef Foundation grant is to be spent on projects such as water quality improvements.

The Senate committee had specifically requested their attendance. The trio comprises the organisation’s chair John Schubert and board members Grant King and Paul Greenfield. Mr King is president of the Business Council of Australia and Dr Greenfield chairs the foundation’s scientific committee.

The foundation has advised that managing director Anna Marsden and another director, John Gunn, will give evidence.

The grant was awarded without a tender process and the government’s own expert agencies were not invited to apply.

The foundation plans to use the grant to leverage additional funds from the private sector.….

Fairfax Media understands the committee will ask the directors to find suitable dates to give evidence and advise them that the committee has the power to summon witnesses. According to the Parliament website, Senate committees rarely need to exercise such powers as witnesses are “normally very willing to place their views and the information they possess before the Senate to assist in an understanding of issues”…..

details of the deal show the foundation will receive almost $45 million to cover administration costs incurred by disbursing the funds. Fairfax Media previously reported the foundation would receive an upfront payment of $22.5 million plus interest. The recently published grant agreement shows the interest will be capped at $22 million, and any additional interest will be spent on reef projects.

The agreement also shows many aspects of the deal will remain confidential, including the strategy used by the foundation to attract private sector funds.

Greens oceans spokesman Peter Whish-Wilson criticised the secrecy and questioned the influence businesses would exert over how the grant was spent.

“How much of it is going to be used to promote the companies and essentially greenwash some of these businesses that are key polluters?” he said.

Businesses involved in the foundation include heavy polluters such as AGL, Peabody Energy, Shell, Rio Tinto and Qantas.

In a statement, the department said it accepted that the foundation “does not wish information about who it might approach or the strategies it might employ in its fundraising to be made public”.

The administration costs were “ reasonable given the scale of the grant” and any entity, including a government agency, would need adequate funds for such purposes, it said.

The department said the attendance at Senate hearings "is a matter for the foundation".

* The Great Barrier Reef Foundation classes Rio Tinto's RTFM Wakmatha (a Post Panamax bulk carrier on the Weipa to Gladstone run) as the foundation's research vessel in its so-called mission to save the reef.

UPDATE

As of 7.35pm 31 July 2018 the transcript of yesterday's public hearing has not been published.

However, mainstream media is reporting that Ms. Marsden gave evidence that in April 2018 Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg met privately with the Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, John Schubert.

At this meeting an unsolicited and unscrutinised offer of over $45 million as a lump sum grant was made to Schubert as chair of the foundation.

This private meeting goes a long way towards explaining Schubert's reluctance to be questioned during this Senate inquiry.

Three former bankers meeting to carve out a large chunk of taxpayer dollars, probably felt comfortable enough to speak freely on a number of subjects.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation: waiting for the inevitable crash

Mainstream media reports that Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull (former director Goldman Sachs), Minister for Environment and Energy & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg (former director Deutsche Bank Australia) and Chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation & Member of the Business Council of Australia John Schubert (former chair Commonwealth Bank) met on 9 April 2018 to discuss the allocation of a grant valued at in excess of AU$487.6 million to the foundation.

It was also reported that no officials from the Department of the Environment and Energy were present at that meeting when the grant offer was made and apparently accepted.

Less than ten weeks later the grant was formally approved without meeting all relevant provisions in the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines 2017.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation with a staff of only six full-time employees now has no more than 6 financial years to spend this large sum, which represents est. 69.66 per cent of funds held in the federal government operated Reef Trust since 2014 and 97.52 per cent of additional funds received by the trust on 29 April 2018.

Leaving the Reef Trust with an unspecified amount to fulfil other commitments over the next six years.

Due to obvious time constraints, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s board and corporate 'advisers' need to have a detailed financial and project action plan for 2018-19 immediately - if not sooner.

I suspect that I am not alone in waiting for waste of resources, duplication of effort, poorly targeted projects, lack of verifiable outcomes and other instances of  mismanagement to emerge over time, given the slapdash way this grant was put together.

Australian Government, GrantConnect:

Grant Award View - GA9190

GA ID: GA9190

Agency: Department of the Environment and Energy

Approval Date: 20-Jun-2018

Publish Date: 12-Jul-2018

Category: Natural Resources - Conservation and Protection

Grant Term: 27-Jun-2018 to 30-Jun-2024

Value (AUD): $487,633,300.00 (GST inclusive where applicable)

---

Ad hoc/One-off: Yes

Aggregate Grant Award: No

---

PBS Program Name: DoTE 17/18 Program 1.1: Sustainable Management of Natural Resources and the Environment

Grant Program: Reef Trust

Grant Activity: Reef Trust grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation

Purpose: The project will deliver activities which are consistent with the purposes of the Reef Trust Special Account Determination to achieve the Reef Trust Objectives and assist to protect the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

---

Internal Reference ID: 100000001841

---

Confidentiality - Contract: Yes

Confidentiality Reason(s) - Contract: Other:  Aspects of the Co-Financing Plan and the Communication and Stakeholder Engagement Plan 

Confidentiality - Outputs: No

---

Grant Recipient Details

Recipient Name: Great Barrier Reef Foundation

Recipient ABN: 82 090 616 443

---

Grant Recipient Location

Suburb: Brisbane

Town/City: Brisbane

Postcode: 4000

State/Territory: QLD

Country: AUSTRALIA

---

Grant Delivery Location

State/Territory: QLD

Country: AUSTRALIA

Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy - Marine:

Grant Agreement Between the Reef Trust and Great Barrier Reef Foundation (June 2018)

Third Sector, 7 June 2018:

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) has confirmed one of its board directors will step down as he faces criminal charges for cartel conduct.

Stephen Roberts, an investment banker and GBRF board director, has been charged by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for allegedly playing a part of a criminal cartel during a $2.5 billion deal.

ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims, said: “These serious charges are the result of an ACCC investigation that has been running for more than two years.”

The charges, which included other banking chief executives and senior staff, were laid by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions and will be determined in court.

Criminal charges relating to an alleged cartel by Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and the ANZ have been formally laid in relation to alleged cartel arrangements relating to trading in ANZ shares following a $2.5 billion institutional share placement in August 2015.

The Great Barrier Reef is a nursery for Queensland & News South Wales fisheries and we are still failing to adequately protect its coral structure and marine biodiversity

"Healthy coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth, providing valuable and vital ecosystem services. Coral ecosystems are a source of food for millions; protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat, spawning and nursery grounds for economically important fish species; provide jobs and income to local economies from fishing, recreation, and tourism; are a source of new medicines, and are hotspots of marine biodiversity." [UCSanDiego, Scripps Insitution of Oceanography]

Go to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation website and you be presented with links to a "Kids Corner", visual tours and various 'projects', some of which were unrealised or unsuccessful.

A website visitor will also find that the foundation has not published online an annual report since 2018 - the year the Turnbull Government announced that this small foundation was to receive $443 million dollars in federal funding.

However, it did publish the Annual Work Plan 2019-2020.

The Foundation rarely rates a mention in the mainstream media these days. 

This is the latest news report is from The Guardian on 11 July 2020:

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has raised only $21.7m out of a target of $357m in donations more than two years after it was awarded the largest single environmental grant in Australian history. 

It has prompted Labor to call for greater transparency from the foundation about its fundraising, while the Greens have said the figure “makes a mockery of the government’s logic” for awarding the grant. 

The charity controversially received $443m for reef projects in 2018, with the government defending its decision at the time by saying the private foundation would leverage the funds to attract further investment in reef restoration and science from the private sector. 

The foundation released an investment strategy in October 2018 that set a target of $357m to be raised over five years, bringing the total reef investment to $800m.  
The target is made up of $200m in contributed funds from research and project partners, and $157m in cash donations from a capital campaign ($100m), corporate giving ($50m) and individual donations ($7m). 

In response to questions from Guardian Australia, the foundation said it had raised $21.7m in in-kind donations from research and project partners, about 6% of the total $357m target. 

It has raised none of the $100m from the capital campaign and refused to provide any figures to show how it was tracking towards targets for corporate giving and individual donations. 

A spokeswoman said the Covid-19 pandemic had now “made the fundraising environment more challenging and uncertain for many not-for-profits across Australia and around the world”. 

In-kind contributions are non-cash donations, which a foundation spokeswoman said included things such as a farmer donating time to work on a water quality project, or a project partner supplying equipment such as a boat. 

“Cash is what we need to fund science projects and offer grants for community projects,” said Peter Whish-Wilson, the Greens senator who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into the awarding of the grant. 

“The kind of funds they’re seeking, yes it’s potentially lumpy and can take time to raise. But I would have thought they would have at least $50m to $100m by now. 

“It makes a mockery of the government’s logic and intent giving nearly half a billion of taxpayer money to a small private foundation on the basis they would raise dollar for dollar co-contributions from the private sector.”.... 

“Our fundraising target was $157m, of which $100m was to support the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program which was launched in April 2020,” the foundation’s managing director, Anna Marsden, said in a statement to Guardian Australia. 

“With this program now finalised and as per the strategy outlined in the collaborative investment plan, fundraising revenue is expected to start to be realised from the third year of the partnership.” 

However, the investment plan states the foundation had intended to raise 60% of that $100m across years two (2019-2020) and three (2020-2021) of the strategy. 

The foundation refused to answer questions about how much it had raised of the remaining $57m made up of corporate giving and individual donations. 

The foundation’s spokeswoman told Guardian Australia there had been some donations in these categories but the organisation would not be supplying figures.....

Read the full artcile here.

BACKGROUND


https://youtu.be/E1BvLMhQLZA 

Drone footage captures tens of thousands of sea turtles off Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29 June 2020: 

Literally cooked in hot water—what happened in the latest mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.... 

Coral bleaching is no longer rare, and no longer confined to a few tidal pools. 

Instead, mass coral bleaching, in which many reefs are affected, has now occurred on the Great Barrier five times in the last 23 years. Three of these events were within the past five years, most recently in the summer of 2020. Bleaching is happening much more frequently, and much more intensively. My colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University, and I—along with many others—have been studying these coral bleaching events in an effort to find out more about what factors are driving corals to bleach, whether the Reef can overcome them by itself—and what humankind can hope to do to help the corals. The findings, so far, are bleak—even more so than when I first wrote about coral bleaching for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2016.... 

Corals are most at risk of such thermal stress in high summer, when water temperatures are at their local seasonal maximum. 

They live only 1-to-2 degrees Celsius (about 1.8-to-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) below their threshold for heat tolerance, so unusually warm waters over a matter of even just a few weeks is sufficient to cause them to bleach.... 

Different coral species respond to thermal stress differently, with the fast-growing branching corals more susceptible, and slower-growing massive corals more tolerant. The appearance and makeup of coral communities after severe bleaching becomes flatter and less diverse as the corals responsible for the complex three-dimensional structures succumb more readily to heat stress. 

There are obvious follow-on effects to the reef-associated organisms which rely on live, healthy corals for their survival. Restoring a reef to its healthy pre-bleaching state is possible but it takes time: time for surviving corals to regain their algal partners and continue to grow; time for coral larvae to be produced on the reef or be imported from nearby unaffected reefs. 

About 10 years without disturbance is required for such recovery and this is just not happening on the Great Barrier Reef. Since 1985, a unique long-term monitoring program has regularly assessed the condition of a subset of reefs. Measurements of the amount of hard coral cover show that the Great Barrier Reef can recover from disturbances such as bleaching, tropical cyclones, Crown-of-Thorns Starfish outbreaks and diseases but that there are limits to their ability to bounce back; overall, there has been a widespread ratcheting down of coral cover. Almost every part of the Great Barrier Reef has suffered some major environmental disturbance in recent times. 

And there is nowhere for the corals to hide.....

Read the full article here.

Morrison Government's newly appointed “Special Envoy” for the Great Barrier Reef is in favour of large scale land clearing on the reef's doorstep

This is the newly appointed “Special Envoy” for the Great Barrier Reef, Liberal MP for Leichhardt Warren Entsch…..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 2019:

Coalition MP Warren Entsch has backed a plan to bulldoze 2000 hectares of pristine forest near the Great Barrier Reef despite being appointed to a role championing the natural marine wonder.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison appointed the veteran Liberal MP, who represents the seat of Leichhardt in north Queensland, as special envoy to the Great Barrier Reef in last month’s ministerial reshuffle.

Mr Entsch once owned Olive Vale station, a large Cape York farm north-west of Cairns, and has been a vocal proponent of land clearing on farming properties in north Queensland. Land clearing can create sediment and nutrient run-off and is the main driver of serious water quality problems on the Great Barrier Reef.

Liberal MP Warren Entsch is a strong advocate of land clearing, despite the possible effects on the Great Barrier Reef's water quality.

In particular, Mr Entsch lobbied his government on behalf of a highly contentious proposal to clear 2000 hectares of forest at Kingvale Station on Cape York Peninsula.

The land drains into two rivers that run into the Great Barrier Reef 200 kilometres downstream. Government-commissioned experts have warned that soil erosion from the work is likely to damage the reef.

Mr Entsch told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that despite his new responsibilities, the Kingvale land-clearing proposal had his “total support”.

“It has absolutely nothing to do with my role [as reef envoy],” he said…..

New Environment Minister Sussan Ley will decide on the Kingvale plan, which is being assessed under Commonwealth laws.

This is what Mr. Entsch is determined to ignore……

The relationship between the position of Kingvale Station in a river catchment which discharges water into the Great Barrier Reef at a point where the reef is under stress from multiple coral bleaching events.

Normanby Catchment in Far North Queensland

Kingvale Station approximate position maked in red

Map found at Great Barrier Reef Foundation

Warren Entsch cannot be ignorant of this relationship, as Kingvale Station is in the federal electorate he has held for the last twenty-three years.

A suspicious person might wonder if Mr. Entsch was one of the government MPs who allegedly 'lobbied' departmental staff on the matter of Kingvale Station land clearing consent in the past,

Such a mind might also ponder the proposition that he was made Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef in order to assist in subverting attempts to stop landclearing so close to this World Heritage listed marine area.

BACKGROUND

ABC News, 22 May 2018:

The Queensland Government has launched legal action against the owner of a Cape York cattle station at the centre of a land-clearing controversy for allegedly breaching an obligation to care for Indigenous heritage.

The owner of Kingvale Station on the Cape York Peninsula legally cleared 500 hectares of land before the Federal Government intervened in 2016, over internal concerns about the effect on sediment run-off into the Great Barrier Reef.

The traditional owners of the land, the Olkola people, claim the owner of Kingvale Station went ahead with the clearing without their knowledge and may have destroyed a burial site.

The ABC can reveal the Queensland Department of Environment and Science is taking court action as a result of an investigation which started as early as 2016, when the Olkola people complained to the Government that they believed Kingvale Station may be in breach of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 November 2018:

The Morrison government has conceded it botched scrutiny of a plan to bulldoze 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest near the Great Barrier Reef and has been forced back to the drawing board following a legal challenge by conservationists.

The development comes as confidential documents show government MPs lobbied environmental officials to wave through the proposal, which would raze land almost three times the size of the combined central business districts of Sydney and Melbourne.

As Fairfax Media reported in May, the Department of the Environment and Energy in a draft report recommended that the government allow the mass vegetation clearing at Kingvale Station on Cape York Peninsula.

The finding, which prompted public outrage, came despite the department conceding the native forest was likely to contain endangered species, and despite expert warnings that runoff caused by the clearing may damage the Great Barrier Reef.

Environmental Defenders Office NSW (EDO NSW), media release, 27 November 2018: 

In a case demonstrating the critical role community organisations play in holding elected officials to account,  the Federal Court has upheld a challenge by the Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECOCeQ) – represented by EDO NSW – to a proposal to clear 2,100 ha of native vegetation on Kingvale Station on the Cape York Peninsula in the Great Barrier Reef catchment.

Early in 2018, the Federal Minister for the Environment decided that the proposed clearing could undergo the least rigorous form of environmental assessment available under Commonwealth environmental law.  The Minister was required, among other things, to be satisfied that the degree of public concern about the action is, or is expected to be, ‘moderately low’.

The Minister has now conceded that decision was not made lawfully. 

ENVISAT satellite image of the Great Barrier Reef alongside the York Peninsula.

“The Act deliberately applies a strict test that must be satisfied before the Minister can opt for the least rigorous assessment,” David Morris, CEO of EDO NSW, stated.

The Government’s own experts found that the proposed clearing would have a significant impact on the Great Barrier Reef and a number of threatened species.

The Minister must now go back to the drawing board to decide afresh how the environmental impacts of the proposal will be assessed. Steps that have been completed since the Minister made the original assessment decision are now void, including the Secretary’s draft recommendation report that was published online for comment in April 2018.

What follows next will depend on the assessment methodology selected by the Minister. Whichever approach is selected, there will be further opportunity for the public to comment on the proposed clearing.

Christine Carlisle, President of ECOCeQ, said ‘We hope the Minister rejects the tree clearing proposal outright, since it will destroy habitat for threatened species, the bulldozing of the forest will contribute to climate change, and there can be no guarantee that sediment run-off from this huge area will not make its way into Princess Charlotte Bay and then on to the Reef.’  

‘We trust that the Minister for the Environment will act in the best interest of the environment, and not rubber stamp this dangerous proposal. The Minister received 6,000 public comments when this clearing was first proposed, and I hope the public responds again to ensure this proposal is not approved at any level,’ she said.

This case illustrates yet again the value of the extended standing provisions in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Without community groups like ECoCeQ, and lawyers to represent them, this unlawful decision would have proceeded without scrutiny and key safeguards for our environment ignored.

Great Barrier Reef: $487.63 million to do little more than sit by the bedside of a dying reef system?

The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 August 2018:

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has had some good fortune that few environmental NGOs could count on. The $444 million it was granted by the government earlier this year dwarfs its previous budgets by a large multiple. Having worked in two small environmental charities of a similar operating budget and staffing to the pre-windfall foundation, I can confirm getting so much money without even applying for it is far beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

Still, the biggest questions about the GBRF windfall don’t relate to its good luck in an opaque government decision, or even its connections to the fossil fuel industry. 

These are entirely valid concerns, but they risk eclipsing the bigger significance of the government’s move.

What we also need to ask is: what does the foundation do? What are its outputs, its activities? And why would the federal government be so keen to direct such a huge chunk of funding to those activities?

At best, the government’s massive funding dump is a long-shot attempt to save a few bits of the reef from inevitable degradation. At worst, it’s a distraction from that fate – and a diversion from addressing its causes.

The foundation has standard governance structures, and the support of credible, dedicated scientists. But what it does it essentially triage.

It’s now clear the government understands that even in the best climate scenario, the Great Barrier Reef will not survive in its recent form. The Department of Environment and Energy acknowledged this just last month. Even the Queensland tourism industry has publicly come to terms with the certainty that the reef will continue to suffer from climate change.

Scientists have been telling us since the 1980s that even modest climate change is a threat to coral reefs. Corals are so sensitive to changes in temperature that even in the best case warming scenario – achieving the 1.5 C stretch goal of the Paris Agreement - it’s now estimated that only 10 per cent of the world’s reefs will survive in their current form. At 2C, none are expected to escape “severe degradation and annihilation”.

The foundation delivers projects focused on “resilience, restoration and innovation”. That means doing its best to protect and restore the reef. It notes climate change is the biggest threat, but it does not address greenhouse gas emissions, at either a local or systemic level.

Its activities are similar to those we’ve seen from several other reef-focused initiatives and programs in recent years: breeding resilient corals, establishing small refuges, developing monitoring tools, and supporting species such as turtles and dugongs.

Projects like these have been allocated hundreds of millions of dollars of federal government funding through various programs over the years, including water quality and run-off management along with contentious projects to removing Crown of Thorns starfish, and more radical measures such as underwater fans to drive cooler water from the depths. The foundation, for its part, reported recently on testing of a polymer “sun shield”, noting that the technology would only scale to smaller, “high value or high risk” parts of the reef.

A good case can be made that these experiments are pragmatic. Even if emissions stop tomorrow, locked-in warming will continue to ravage the reef for the next few decades.

The foundation counts respected research institutions among its partners, and scientists such as Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland are on its scientific advisory board. For Hoegh-Guldberg, who sounded the alarm on the threat of climate for coral reefs in 1999, the foundation provides an important opportunity to educate corporations on the dire state of the Great Barrier Reef and climate in general. Again, its scientific review processes have not been questioned.

However, it’s important to remember that there's no guarantee these “resilience” activities will succeed against a backdrop of waters reaching temperatures deadly to coral. Whether portions of a complex marine ecosystem can be preserved, and in what form, is still very much unknown. Professor Terry Hughes, a contender for world leading coral reef expert, is dubious; in a Nature paper he found that water quality and fishing pressure – two key ways of improving resilience - made little difference in the face of devastating warm surges.

BACKGROUND

WEDNESDAY, 8 AUGUST 2018, Great Barrier Reef Foundation: waiting for the inevitable crash