​The lesson learnt from the acid rain story was that international governance e.g., the Helsinki Protocol, and the dismantling of partisanship together with community-wide support, have been effective in protecting the Earth’s climate (Ogden, 2019). The lesson learnt from the hole in the ozone layer was that perseverance is required, in addition to international governance (the Montreal Protocol) together with industry and consumer co-operation. Acceptance of the relatively long-term elimination period (2060-2080) requires the quality of perseverance. The lesson from the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) threat was that a spirit of co-operation by learned institutions and local communities is required, in addition to the qualities learnt from the acid rain and COTS scenarios. In summary, the world community has persevered and has learnt how to cooperate and succeed in environmental action against difficult circumstances.

​Please view full blog post below for Environmental Win Blog 04.

The COTS is a coral-eating starfish, with the scientific name Acanthaster planci. During the 1960s and 1970s, the bulk of the hard coral cover of reefs in the central region of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) was reported as killed because of population outbreaks of millions of COTS. The GBR is a vast and spectacular ecosystem and one of the most complex and beautiful natural systems on Earth. The GBR is composed of a series of coral reefs, located adjacent to the Queensland coastline of Australia.

​The GBR is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, stretching 2300 kilometres and comprising almost 3000 individual reefs. It is a significant economic and recreational resource for regional communities and Australia as a whole, with an asset value of $A56 billion, and supporting 64,000 jobs annually (O'Mahony et al., 2017). Therefore, major changes to the condition of the GBR ecosystem have social and economic implications for regional communities (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 2019b).

EnviroBlog 01 describes the success against the problem of acid rain.

The combustion of various fossil fuels can produce chemical pollutants in the atmosphere, such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds. These pollutants may be subject to long-range transport and precipitation, causing damage by acidification. This process has been labelled as “acid rain.” The phenomenon of acid rain was reported in Scotland as early as 1872 (Levy, 1995).

Please view full blog post below for Environmental Win Blog 01. ​

These EnviroBlogs are part of a set of three EnviroBlogs describing the success of large-scale environmental actions - Dr John K Lee.

​Citation references, Paragraph and Section references are those contained in Dr John K Lee's PhD Thesis “Values and science in contemporary education: The study and impact of student orientation”. The Thesis document is available in the University of Newcastle repository, here: https://openresearch.newcastle.edu.au/articles/thesis/Values_and_science_in_contemporary_education_the_study_and_impact_of_student_orientation/28975331