Australia’s north-west reefs teem with life – but they are also at the centre of a massive fossil fuel expansion | Australia news
Australia’s next wave of fossil fuel expansion is planned for environments far from where most people will ever see it. Places like Scott Reef. Once part of an interconnected coral ecosystem that rivalled the Great Barrier Reef in scale, Scott Reef now sits in a remnant group of atolls near the edge of the Australian continental shelf, nearly 300km from its sparsely populated north-west coast. Though little known by the public, the atolls are visually striking – from above, they look like a demented smiling facing spread over tens of kilometres – and ecologically extraordinary. Scientists have documented more than 1,500 species across its formations, many unique to the area. They include at least 300 reef-building corals, 720 types of fish, endangered turtles and sea snakes, and an array of migratory whales. “If you think of your idea of a stereotypical coral reef paradise, that’s what it’s like,” says Dr Ben Fitzpatrick, a coral reef ecologist who has spent decades working in the country’s north-west marine environment. “It’s been so isolated that a lot of …
