Author: Esther Tanquintic-Misa
Source: International Business Times
December 17, 2012

Australia's efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef will be judged by the United Nations' environmental arm UNESCO in 2013, a deadline that will likely push efforts to the limits as this would be a make or break for the tourist attraction if t it is deserving as UNESCO's World Heritage site and worth to be preserved.

Early this year, Australia's attention was called on by the global body after the latter got worried over the gas industry developments on Curtis Island off Gladstone in Queensland. The UN body's apprehensions all the more got sizzled up when in October, a new assessment on the Great Barrier Reef revealed that coral cover had been slashed into half due to cyclones, bleaching and the crown-of-thorns starfish, all starting in the mid-1980s.

UNESCO is worried the ongoing gas industry developments will all the more facilitate for the faster eradication of what's left of the coral covers, which according to the study is expected to slash again in half within the next 10 years.

To read the full text of this article, click here.