A26 EZ RE the washington post.sunday, march 27 , 2022

BY SAMMY WESTFALL

Australia has accepted a nearly
decade-old offer that would allow
New Zealand to resettle hundreds
of asylum seekers that Australia
has held at offshore processing
centers on the island nation of
Nauru — a policy that has come
under criticism from human
rights groups.
Since 2013, Australia has redi-
rected people arriving by boat
without visas to the detention
camps on Nauru, a Pacific island
nation around 2,000 miles from
Australia’s shores, or Manus Is-
land in Papua New Guinea. Aus-
tralia also maintains a policy that

prevents arrivals from ever reset-

tling in Australia.

The same year, New Zealand’s

then-Prime Minister John Key

offered to take in 150 of the de-

tainees for three years. Since

then, Kiwi leaders have reiterated

the offer, including Prime Minis-

ter Jacinda Ardern: “We remain

ready and willing to help,” Ard-

ern’s office said in 2018.

Australia has rebuffed the of-

fer, saying that maintaining its

hard-line immigration stance is a

deterrent for future undocument-

ed, and dangerous, sea journeys.

The Aussies also have voiced con-

cern that refugees brought to

New Zealand would travel back to

Australia for permanent settle-

ment.

New Zealand Immigration

Minister Kris Faafoi said in a

Thursday statement that he was

“pleased that Australia has taken

up the offer,” and glad that New

Zealand is able to provide “reset-

tlement outcomes for refugees

who would otherwise have con-

tinued to face uncertain futures.”

Even as Australia accepted the

new policy, Australian officials

reiterated their strong border

policies.

“This arrangement does not

apply to anyone who attempts an

illegal maritime journey to Aus-

tralia in the future. Australia re-

mains firm — illegal maritime

arrivals will not settle here per-

manently. Anyone who attempts

to breach our borders will be

turned back or sent to Nauru,”

Australian Minister for Home Af-

fairs Karen Andrews said in a

statement.

The Australia-run offshore

processing centers have been con-

troversial. Human rights groups

said they constitute an interna-

tional law violation and have de-

nounced the centers’ conditions.

Human Rights Watch in 2016 said

refugees on Nauru suffer neglect

and inhumane treatment — and

even said the “government’s fail-

ure to address serious abuses ap-

pears to be a deliberate policy to

deter further asylum seekers.”

Around 112 refugees remain in

Nauru and 105 in Papua New

Guinea, according to the Refugee

Council of Australia. Its data

shows that 3,127 people have been

sent offshore since July 2013 —

with about 1,100 brought to Aus-

tralia for temporary purposes and

993 settled in the United States.

Australia announced in October

that it would end its detention

deal with Papua New Guinea,

though its arrangement with Na-

uru would remain.

Rights groups have sounded

the alarm of a mental health crisis

on Nauru. The Refugee Council of

Australia said that experts de-

scribed people transferred to Na-

uru as “among the most trauma-

tized they have seen,” and Doctors

Without Borders has also report-

ed widespread severe mental

health conditions, including self-

harm and attempted suicide.

One 23-year-old Iranian refu-

gee set himself on fire in protest

of conditions in Nauru in 2016, in

front of three Canberra-based

U.N. refugee agency officials. He

died in a hospital two days after,

and his partner has sued the

Australian government for negli-

gence. The same week, on the

same island, a 21-year-old Somali

asylum seeker set fire to herself.

New Zealand to take in hundreds of asylum seekers held by Australia

BY DARRYL FEARS

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is
experiencing its sixth massive
bleaching event as climate change
has warmed the ocean, raising
concerns over whether one of the
world’s natural wonders is near-
ing a tipping point.
Reef managers confirmed Fri-
day that aerial surveys detected
catastrophic bleaching on 60
­percent of the reef ’s corals. The
discovery is particularly disturb-
ing, researchers said, because a
cooling La Niña weather pattern
in the ocean usually offsets warm-
ing that stresses coral and causes
them to lose color.
“This is a first mass bleaching
event during a La Niña,” said Emi-
ly Darling, a coral reef scientist
who directs coral reef conserva-
tion for the Wildlife Conservation
Society, in a phone interview. “It
continues to reinforce that with
extreme heat waves and water
getting too hot, corals are losing
their recovery windows — those
times between bleaching events
when we know corals can recov-
er.”
Unusually high ocean tempera-
tures, up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit
above normal, probably triggered
the event. It is the sixth massive
bleaching the reef has suffered in
two decades, and the fourth since

2016. Back-to-back bleaching

events in 2016 and 2017 affected

two-thirds of the world’s largest

reef.

“The pace at which bleaching

events are now occurring on the

Reef is a matter of huge concern,”

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Foundation said in a statement.

“It clearly highlights the impor-

tance of transitioning rapidly to a

low-carbon economy.

“It is too early to know the level

of long-term damage that the

bleaching has caused,” the foun-

dation added, “because many cor-

als will recover once thermal

stress declines. However, based

on what’s happened in the last five

years, we would expect to see

severe coral mortality in the shal-

lowest regions of the worst affect-

ed reefs.”

The Great Barrier Reef is made

up of 3,000 reefs that support

thousands of species of marine

plants and animals. Although

bleaching leads to scarring and

death, the group added, parts of

the reef can “begin to recover as

coral communities regrow and

new coral larvae settle on the

reef.”

Two years ago, researchers who

analyzed the health of the reef ’s

coral populations since 1995 con-

cluded that warming has killed off

half of them — and that these

colonies may never recover.

John “Charlie” Veron, a re-

Climate warming hits

Great Barrier Reef again

nowned expert who has dived the

Great Barrier Reef for 45 years

and is known as “The Godfather

of Coral,” is now predicting their

extinction.

“It’s the beginning of a plan-

etary catastrophe,” Veron told

CNN. “I was too slow to become

vocal about it.”

Darling said she understands

why Veron’s offering such a dire

forecast. He has witnessed the

decline of a resource he first saw

at its peak, she said, over the

course of half his life. But even as

reefs and the fish that rely on

them deteriorate, she remains

more hopeful.

“We know corals are resilient,

just like so much of nature, but we

have to give them a fighting

chance,” Darling said.

She advocates three conserva-

tion strategies: protect cool water

refuges around the world where

coral reefs thrive; work harder to

help reefs recover between

bleaching events; and stop relying

on reefs for fishing and tourism

when they are clearly in decline.

“In my 15 years of diving, I’ve

been fortunate to dive on reefs

around the world,” Darling said.

“I’ve seen extraordinary reefs. It’s

what you expect to see, and it’s

still there.”

Glenn Nicholls/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Getty Images

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering a “mass bleaching event” as coral comes under heat stress from warmer seas, reef authorities

said. But unlike other events, this one is happening during a cooling weather pattern that usually offsets the warming that stresses coral.

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