{"id":37168,"date":"2026-01-31T09:05:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=37168"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:05:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:05:02","slug":"only-community-and-greens-pressure-can-keep-great-barrier-reef-hopes-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/only-community-and-greens-pressure-can-keep-great-barrier-reef-hopes-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Only community and Greens pressure can keep Great Barrier Reef hopes alive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A government report prepared for UNESCO on actions taken to stop the Great Barrier Reef losing its World Heritage status highlights that without community and Greens pressure, the Albanese government would have nothing to boast about.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Greens spokesperson for healthy oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe most significant measure taken by the government to protect the Great Barrier Reef has only come about because of community and Greens pressure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDeforestation was listed as a key factor in UNESCO\u2019s decision whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger or not \u2013 and the only reason vegetation within 50 metres of Reef catchments now receives assessment under Australia\u2019s environment laws is because the community and Greens fought for it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTackling local threats like deforestation are obviously very important for the Reef\u2019s short term protection, but they won\u2019t save the Great Barrier Reef from being annihilated by the political stupidity of ripping open new coal and gas projects in a climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cObvious to everyone except Labor is that you simply cannot truly protect the Great Barrier Reef by making climate change worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is hypocritical for Labor to think it can be the trusted guardian of the world\u2019s greatest natural wonder while also the third biggest exporter of fossil fuels on the planet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo long as Labor is content with ripping open new coal and gas projects that are cooking our oceans, the Great Barrier Reef is at risk of losing its World Heritage values&nbsp;forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A government report prepared for UNESCO on actions taken to stop the Great Barrier Reef losing its World Heritage status highlights that without community and Greens pressure, the Albanese government would have nothing to boast about.&nbsp; Greens spokesperson for healthy oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson:\u00a0 \u201cThe most significant measure taken by the government to protect the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/only-community-and-greens-pressure-can-keep-great-barrier-reef-hopes-alive\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Only community and Greens pressure can keep Great Barrier Reef hopes alive&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37169,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37168\/revisions\/37169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}