If you have any interest at all in continuing to live on this tiny, blue planet for longer than, say, the next twenty years or so, there’s a good chance you’re worried about climate change.
And if you’re worried about climate change, you’re probably damn well panicked about the future of the Great Barrier Reef – and with good reason.
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The statistics are terrifying, but they aren’t new: at least two thirds of the reef is suffering from coral bleaching, ocean acidification is far worse than we originally thought, and hordes of crown-of-thorns starfish are fulfilling their role as locusts of the sea by killing everything in sight.
As a result, when the Federal Government announced almost half a billion dollars in this year’s budget to go towards rescuing the reef from the brink of disaster, people were understandably stoked.
Sure, conservative estimates suggest that even if we were able to find five multi-cultural teenagers to unite magic rings and summon a blue dude with the powers to stop the destruction of the reef in its tracks, it would STILL take at least a decade for the reef to regenerate.
Half a billion dollars might not be able to conjure up Captain Planet, but it’s a brilliant place to start.
So, where will this money go?
The assumption was the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority seeing as it’s, you know, the government body representing the reef.
Nope!
Option two was the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.
Nada!
How about the Australian Institute of Marine Science?
Still no!
The money is headed straight to a group called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation – an organisation which hires all of eleven people, and only six of those on a full-time basis. In comparison, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has 206 full-time employees.
In 2017, the Foundation’s turnover was less than $8 million, and they’ve just been handed a $444 million lump sum payment.
Honestly, imagine someone handing you over fifty-five times your yearly salary in one go. With that sort of money, I could almost afford the deposit on a ‘renovator’s dream’ in outer Sydney.
Aside from being tiny, The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has some concerning connections.
The Chairman of the Foundation is Dr John M Schubert, who was appointed in 2004 – the very same year he was appointed Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank (a position he stayed in until 2010). From 2008 to 2014, the Commonwealth Bank funded more fossil fuel related projects within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area than any other bank, so that’s… not great.
That’s not all. The Foundation’s Managing Director is Anna Marsden. It’s a name you probably don’t know, but she’s married to Ben Myers – who worked as the chief of staff to ex LNP Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman.
The very same Campbell Newman who proudly declared that Queensland is “in the coal business”, sold off Ecofund (a successful carbon trading company), and hired an Environment Minister who didn’t think humans were to blame for climate change. Yeah. That Campbell Newman.
On their “respected” Chairman’s Panel one of the stand out names is Peabody Energy who are a “leading pure play coal company” who have previously funded anti climate change activism.
Why the Turnbull government decided that this organisation was the one to get a payday is anyone’s guess, but perhaps they’ll step up to the plate?
Still, Foundation is saying the right things.
Their website declares their support for the Paris Agreement and announces that their aims are to “build the Reef’s resilience to the impacts of a changing climate” and to participate in “constructive dialogue on policy options”.
They’ve described being given the cash as like “winning the lotto” and are promising to work with the Government for the good of the Reef.
But why did the money go to them?
I live in hope that the Reef’s future isn’t quite as bleak as the fields of bleached coral lying just below the surface, but honestly, the awarding of this money just feels… fishy.