Australia has an incredible range of wildlife. Indeed, a great number of people visit Australia because of this. From their fascinating land mammals -kangaroos and koalas, as well as many more, to the great barrier reef and the wide array of other sea life.
They also have areas of Australia which are already almost unusable, because the temperature is too high. You would think therefore, that conservation would be a high priority. Unfortunately under the current government that is very much not the case.
From mining projects and farming, wildlife is shown to have low priority. In recent times, a firm was given permission to dump material from dredging inside a marine park (and submerging parts of a coral reef – something that will kill it.
Now they are planning seismic testing over an area of 8000 square km, lying on the edge of two marine parks – home to almost 100 protected species.
Research has shown that some of these reefs are in pristine condition, something not found almost anywhere else. Reefs such as Rowley Shoals have had recent studies done on them to confirm this.
Scientists have pointed out that sound waves pay no attention to borders of protected reserves, and carrying out these tests here is likely to do significant damage to the marine area. If these tests are successful, the company will then want to remove the gas or oil. It is a virtual certainty that some of these fuels will be spilt and are likely to permanently damage this delicate ecosystem.
We all know that we need to stop finding more oil and gas and digging it up. Indeed, even the known oil and gas supply is not something that we can fully take advantage without increasing temperatures by more than the 1.5 degrees we are aiming at. As a result we should stop exploring – unfortunately, no company in the world has clearly identified a way to cease emitting any carbon AND at the same time, continue to emit as much emissions as they want.
We need to stop exploring. If we know that we cannot exploit any more fossil fuel stores, then lets leave this one alone, and finish extracting elsewhere (as we all cut out our emissions as much as possible.
