| By Diana Taylor
BRISBANE,
Australia (Reuters) - Australia's Great Barrier Reef risks choking
to death on fertilizer-soaked silt thanks to the clearance of
wetlands and rainforests along the neighboring Queensland coast,
scientists said Wednesday.
The Australian
Institute of Marine Science said research from 30 scientists around
the world showed the World Heritage listed reef needed urgent
help to survive the impact of farming and other human activities.
``Without
fresh thinking and fundamental attitudinal and management changes,
the Great Barrier Reef will not survive as we enjoy it today...
it will be slowly and continuously degraded both biologically
and aesthetically,'' Frank Talbot of Macquarie University concluded
in a report published by the institute.
It said much
of the wetlands and rainforests along the tropical Queensland
coast had been cleared for sugar cane farming, releasing a stream
of fertilizer-loaded sediment.
``The sediment
run-off is choking the reef; satellite photography shows huge,
muddy planes reaching the mid-reefs,'' the institute's senior
research scientist, Eric Wolanski, told Reuters.
Sediment was
one of the biggest threats to corals and many of those buried
in silt were likely to die, he said.
``Terrestrial
runoff may have serious indirect and long-term impacts when acting
in combination with storms, coral bleaching or crown of thorns
starfish outbreaks,'' the report said.
The report
looks at the impact of coastal towns, fishing and farming on the
reef, the world's biggest coral structure.
Wolanski said
further damage had been done to marine life and fisheries by the
stripping of seagrass beds from Queensland's coastline.
The report
said dugong populations had declined by 50 to 80 percent in the
last 10 years, and loggerhead turtle breeding had collapsed by
up to 80 percent in eastern Australia since the 1970s.
``Activities
and decisions in the past decade show disturbing patterns in the
way the Great Barrier Reef is being managed and there are serious
problems which may affect its long term health,'' the report said.
``Many basic
values of the Great Barrier Reef have been chipped away... (from)
decisions that support development, tourism and fishing at the
expense of the long term protection of the reef.''
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