Australia 2010 - 3rd post

G’day!

Today I’ve had the best experience of my life, no doubt about that! I’ve been diving in The Great Barrier Reef. It was so beautiful I can’t describe it with words. The Great Barrier Reef is situated off the coast of Queensland at the north-east of Australia, and it’s the worlds largest reef system stretching over a distance of incredibly 2 600 km. The reef has got a diversity of life, among them many vulnerable and endangered species. More than 1500 species of fish, 30 species of whales and dolphins and 215 species of birds is a part of the wildlife here. So if you have the opportunity to visit The Great Barrier Reef during a stay in Australia, do it! I promise you won’t regret.

But when I arrived back at my hotel and read the newspaper I forgot this morning, I was a bit surprised.

“Federal Government approves coal seam gas projects in central Queensland”

The government in Australia has given a green flag to two major coal seam gas projects in central Queensland worth $16 billion dollars. "We must protect the Great Artesian Basin, our threatened species, our waterways and the Great Barrier Reef," the environment minister said.

To be honest I’m a bit skeptical about this. First of all the danger with projects like that, I’m thinking of the disaster in Mexico some months ago when 185 million gallons of oil was released into the ocean. Of course the engineers said it was safe and things like that would never happen. But you never know! And you saw what this disaster resulted in. Big parts of the sea life in the Gulf Coast were completely ruined. And all this goes into a bad circle. What I try to say is that, in worst case, similar accidents, like a gas explosion, could happen with the gas-projects in Queensland as well. Can you imagine what would happen then? The marine life on the Great Barrier Reef could be seriously damaged, people could be killed, and not forget The Great Artesian Basin could be ruined which is the only reliable source of freshwater through much of inland Australia. I don’t dare to think about what would happen if the whole population in Australia had lost all of their freshwater.

And it’s not only me that’s skeptical about this. Several “Green Groups” and farmers have raised concerns about coal seam gas development. This week four toxic chemicals were discovered in eight of the gas wells.

In addition to this I read that indigenous groups have to leave their homes in advantage of gas development. The Australian Aboriginals has been driven away from their homes since “The White Man” settled in Australia. If this continues, we may have lost one of the oldest native people in the whole world within a few years. What a disaster that would’ve been!

Furthermore gas production isn’t very eco-friendly. And if we want to reduce the effect of the global warming and what it brings, gas development is not the right way to go.

The only positive thing I see about this project is that it makes jobs, about 5000 construction jobs and 1000 jobs on a permanent basis.

But that’s it for today mates! Time to go to bed…