Isra-Mart srl: Australia govt warns climate change threatens Kakadu park

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Australia warned on Thursday that its World Heritage-listed outback Kakadu wetland, made famous in the "Crocodile Dundee" films, was at severe risk from climate change, as the government faced a growing battle to introduce a carbon tax.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's one-seat majority government is embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious climate policy debate, pitching mining magnates against environment activists including Oscar winning Australian actress Cate Blanchett.

Gillard, struggling to sell her plan to cut greenhouse emissions through a carbon tax and emissions trading, said without global action one of Australia's major tourist areas, Kakadu, would eventually be devastated by rising seas.

"Salt water will get into the fresh water in Kakadu, changing the ecology, being a real risk for the native animals that live there, being a real risk for the indigenous communities that still rely on this ecosystem for their bush tucker," Gillard said, referring to native foods.

Gillard's Labor plans to introduce a carbon tax on 1,000 of the country's biggest polluters in 2012, transitioning to emissions trading three to five years after that.