SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will invest a billion Australian dollars (about 631 million euros) to help protect the Great Barrier Reef, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday, after reaching the summer last to prevent the place from being placed on the UNESCO list of sites in danger.
This new envelope, spread over nine years, comes on top of the budgetary package of two billion Australian dollars intended to protect the Great Barrier Reef against environmental threats over the next three decades, indicated the leader in a press release.
The reef off the northeast Australian coast, until now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has lost more than half of its corals in the past three decades as sea heat waves have caused these over the past five years of significant bleaching.
Scott Morrison, under pressure this election year over his handling of the new wave of the coronavirus outbreak caused by the Omicron variant, said the funds would also help support jobs in Queensland state.
The Great Barrier Reef traditionally attracts some 5 million visitors a year.
(Report Renju Jose; French version Jean Terzian)