Australia’s government has plans to open up the Great Barrier Reef-a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site-to a coal port that would dump millions of tonnes of toxic sediment upon the fragile coral ecosystem.

Since the conservative Tony Abbott-led Liberal government took office last September, it has pushed through only eight pieces of legislation thanks to a hostile Senate. But in July, the country faces a Senate ‘changeover” that will flip the balance of power in favor of the government. At that point, Australians-not to mention environmentalists and tourists-better brace themselves.

Abbott has long prioritized big business over eco-friendly measures: He has already shuttered the Climate Commission (established to ‘provide reliable and authoritative” info about climate change) and ARENA, the agency responsible for increasing the amount of renewable energy sources used in the country. He’s introduced bills to repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax. And now, he’s gunning for some of the country’s most pristine ecosystems, from the forests of Tasmania to the Great Barrier Reef.

Abbott has vowed to ‘unlock” areas of Tasmania’s protecting forest for logging, saying, ‘We have quite enough national parks. We have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too […]