UNESCO will discuss the Tony Abbott government’s plan to chop down 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest at the cultural organization’s meeting in Qatar this week.  The government wants the forest’s World Heritage Site status revoke so that clear-cutting can begin.

Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley put it plainly, “Logging World Heritage forests is as reckless as destroying any other World Heritage site, like using the Grand Canyon as a garbage dump, knocking down the Sydney Opera House for harbourside apartments or selling the Eiffel Tower for scrap.”

If the Abbott government succeeds, Australia would become the first developed nation to have reversed the protected status of a forest on economic grounds.  But this is not the only issue that UNESCO will have with Australia this week.

The Great Barrier Reef might lose its World heritage Site status because of the Abbott government’s plans to build the world’s largest coal port near the reef.  The dredge soil is to be dumped in the reef’s waters.  And then, product from new coalmines in the Galilee Basin would be ship directly through the reef, increasing the likelihood of accidents and spills.