MIXED RAW EMOTIONS AS GREAT BARRIER REEF REMAINS IN DANGER

I was sitting in a doctor's surgery with my parents hearing that a heart bypass for my beautiful Dad had been ruled out as a medical option.

My Dad was overjoyed at the thought of not having surgery. My Mum and I were part celebratory and part apprehensive. A major and risky surgical operation had been avoided. But the oppressive danger of poor heart health remained. Not long after a heart attack took my dad from us at 59, far too young.

The UNESCO draft decision is far from the clean bill of health that the governments have been claiming via the mainstream media since the announcement. But it's also a woefully inadequate outcome if the objective is to secure a safe future for the Reef.

The result was widely expected to go that way, after an extraordinary international lobbying campaign by the Australian Government, so I wasn't surprised. This is likely to be adopted formally when the 21-nation World Heritage Committee gathers in Germany at the end of June for its annual meeting. The Australian and Queensland governments will have avoided the politically dangerous procedure of 'in Danger' listing for the iconic Reef, but it will remain in deep trouble.

As a Queenslander I grew up loving the Reef and I hate the very idea of being part of a world where it is in peril. I feel sick in the stomach contemplating my grandchildren and other future generations never enjoying the Great Barrier Reef as I have experienced it.

Worst of all, I felt a deep despair that too little is being done too late to really make a difference for the fate of the Reef.

1 Million Women has been calling on the World Heritage Committee to make the 'in Danger' declaration to shock our governments into far greater efforts to save the Reef. Or failing that, to keep the Reef on its watch-list to ensure at least that the governments do all they have promised.

The news on Friday night means we were denied the first but had some success with the second. The Australian Government will have to report back on progress by the end of 2016, a bit over 18 months away, and the threats to the Reef could be revisited by the Committee as early as 2017.

The state of conservation for the Reef also will be reviewed formally in 2020, and 'in Danger' listing could be revisited if real progress to turn around its poor and declining condition is not apparent. Remember, the Reef already has lost half of its coral mass since the 1980s.

And although it may seem bizarre, UNESCO wasn't even looking at climate change, which the scientific evidence clearly identifies as the greatest threat of all to the Reef.

Its review was all about the industrialisation of the Queensland, dredging and dumping, and traditional threats like poor water quality and Crown of Thorns starfish infestations. (Did you see the media frenzy?)

These are all important issues and some extra protective action and funding has been wrung from the governments as a result of having the imminent threat of an 'in Danger' listing hanging over their political necks.

That is welcome and is a credit to all of the environment groups that have pushed the governments relentlessly to do more. Including forcing them to retreat from the most outrageous of actions such as the 2013 approval for 3 million tonnes of dredge spoil from a coal port project to be dumped in World Heritage waters.

But when it comes to meaningful action on climate change, however, the Australian Government is no where.

The sad conclusion is that it loves coal more than coral, and as long as this remains the case the Reef will continue to be in peril.

1 Million Women won't stop carrying this warning to the World Heritage Committee, to its key scientific and heritage advisers at UNESCO and the IUCN, to the government itself.

We're still declaring the Reef 'in Danger' – because it is!

READ MORE: The Barrier Reef is not listed in danger, but threats remain