This morning, October 13, a protest organised by Extinction Rebellion disrupted the Queensland Parliamentary Annexe in Brisbane.
‘The terminal decline of our reef’ was the reason for holding a protest, as Extinction Rebellion explains.
The idea was to raise awareness about the Great Barrier Reef’s grim future and ask the Queensland government to declare it ‘in danger’.
Indeed, with the government inaction, ‘the extent to which climate change has damaged the World Heritage values of the Great Barrier Reef is unprecedented’, declares Tim Badman, Director of the International Union for the Conversation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Heritage Program.
The parliamentary annexe ‘has been scaled and decorated with fish carcasses’, reports Extinction Rebellion.
Reef in danger
Banners with ‘reef in danger’ or ‘dead reef no fish’, have also been installed from the roof of the building by an activist.
The police subsequently arrested him for refusing to come down.
These actions aim to ‘evoke the lethal consequences of dead reef and the 1,400 species of fish that depend on them’, stated Extinction Rebellion.
Rene Wooller, an Extinction Rebellion activist, declared, ‘dead reef means no more reef fish. This isn’t a campaign “to save our reef”, it’s a struggle to mitigate mass extinction’.
The 1.5°c rise in temperature is known to be the limit of no-return. According to Mr Wooller, this limit could be reached for the Olympic Games in Brisbane in 2032.
If it happens, it will seal the fate of the Great Barrier Reef and its biodiversity and will not be able to recover.
With the disruption of the Parliamentary Annexe and many police vehicles, traffic in the morning peak hour has been reported.
