Stranded ship a ‘time bomb’ to Great Barrier Reef
Editing by Jerry Norton
SYDNEY
Mon Apr 5, 2010 3:56am EDT SYDNEY (Reuters) – A stranded Chinese coal ship leaking oil onto Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is an environmental time bomb with the potential to devastate large protected areas of the reef, activists said on Monday. The ship was a “ticking environmental time bomb,” Gilly Llewellyn, director of conservation for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Australia, told Reuters. She said this was the third major international incident involving its owners in four years. Australian government officials say the stricken Shen Neng I belongs to the Shenzhen Energy Group, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, better known by its acronym COSCO. In 2007, COSCO was linked to a major oil spill in San Francisco bay, while last year it was tied to another in Norway, both of which damaged environmentally sensitive areas. “We are seeing a concerning pattern potentially associated with this company,” Llewellyn told Reuters. … “We would potentially be looking at an environmental disaster,” Llewellyn said.” It would be an extremely large spill.” Among the animals affected would be protected species of turtles, dugongs, and marine birds, as well as the sensitive corals, she said. …
