Coal versus coral? For Queensland's ultra-conservative government, there's no contest. Never mind that the Great Barrier Reef is already in peril – the government has approved the development of five "megaports" along its coastline.
A 10-year port strategy, which will involve the seabed being dredged to create shipping lanes, and the dumping of waste in the reef's waters, is part of a plan to treble Australian coal exports by 2030, with much of the raw material coming from Queensland's massive coal fields.
While the state government claims the strategy – released earlier this month with little ceremony – will not harm the marine environment, scientists and conservation groups are horrified. The World Heritage-listed reef is already in such a dire state that Unesco has threatened to list it as "in danger" without radical remedial action.
Enlarging existing ports on the environmentally sensitive coastline into some of the world's biggest coal export facilities was probably not what the UN body's World Heritage Committee – which will discuss the Great Barrier Reef's health at its annual meeting in Doha, Qatar this week – had in mind.
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