Environment Minister Greg Hunt has a battle to convince Leonardo DiCaprio on reef plan

HE won over world leaders but Environment Minister Greg Hunt could have a tougher battle convincing Leonardo DiCaprio the Great Barrier Reef is safe.

Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Solutions Project garden party at La Plaza Cultural on Thursday, June 18, 2015, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

HE may have won over world leaders but Environment Minister Greg Hunt may have a tougher battle convincing Leonardo DiCaprio Australia is no longer the “Wild West” sheriff of the Great Barrier Reef.

Yesterday, there was a unanimous vote and even applause for Environment Minister Greg Hunt and his delegation at the UNESCO 39th session of the World Heritage Committee, for their draft management plan for the coral reef.

Even the no-nonsense chairwoman Maria Bohmer expressed surprise and admiration for the “quick” turnaround in protection policy by both Queensland and federal governments that had threatened to embarrass Australia and see the reef put on the “in danger” list.

Slammed the reef .., Leonardo DiCaprio has previously criticised Australia’s reef protection or lack of. Picture: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP

But Hunt said now he hoped the rest of the world including the multi Oscar-nominated Hollywood actor DiCaprio, who famously slammed Australia last year, will realise this was a new dawn on the actor’s so called Wild West.

He even invited DiCaprio to come join him on a dive or snorkel about the reef.

“I think everyone will look at the unanimous decision and say that there’s been unprecedented change in Australia and we would invite everybody including Mr DiCaprio to come dive the reef and see the best of it and see that it is still the world’s greatest reef,” Mr Hunt told News Corp Australia yesterday.

Invitation ... Environment Minister Greg Hunt has invited DiCaprio to come take a look at the reef. Picture: Charles Miranda

“It is majestic and there are challenges but everybody should be made aware of that and what we have seen is not just an endorsement of the Australian response and management but recognition it is the Great Barrier Reef.”

Hunt said new policies were already seeing water quality improving as well as fish stock diversity and coral health.

He said Australia was singled out and praised by the UN’s World Heritage Committee’s 21 member states for its 2050 protection plan.

“I think that may cause the critics to perhaps rethink and acknowledge that when the world praises our environmental leadership that should not be ignored,” he said.

Applause ... There was a unanimous vote for Environment Minister Greg Hunt and his delegation at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, for their draft management plan for the coral reef. Picture: Line K Bay, AIMS

DiCaprio, a noted marine conservationist, last year told an oceans conference in Washington DC he had seen first-hand the dire straits of the reef.

“Since my very first dive in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia 20-years-ago to the dive I got to do in the very same location just two years ago, I’ve witnessed environmental devastation first-hand,” he said.

“What once had looked like an endless underwater utopia is now riddled with bleached coral reefs and massive dead zones.

“Unfortunately today, there’s no proper law enforcement capacity and little accountability for violating the law. It’s the Wild West on the high seas.”