Senator Rachel Siewert comments on north-west coral bleaching threat

2015-11-04

“It is very concerning to learn that rising sea temperatures driven by El Nino are threatening coral reefs off the Kimberley coast.

“This highlights yet again the importance of ensuring that we protect areas of our marine environments, protecting areas from other impacts helps ensure they are more resilient and gives our reefs a fighting chance.

“We have unique marine species found nowhere else in the world, but right around the country, our oceans are under threat.

“We must ramp our protections that ensure our oceans have the best chance of survival under these worrying circumstances.

“An immediate course of action by our Government should be to reinstate marine protected areas and their management plans.

“The Government is now ‘reviewing’ our marine protected areas, despite the fact that they are based on decades of work. The Prime Minister should now abandon this review and reinstate our world-leading network of marine protected areas”.