Experts raise alarm as historic landmark may soon vanish entirely: 'Hugely iconic'

An iconic Australian lighthouse is at risk of being inundated by the rising sea.

What's happening?

The 34-meter (112-foot) Point Moore Lighthouse in Western Australia, in service since 1878, is only about 100 meters (328 feet) from the creeping ocean, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Just five years ago, that distance was around 150 meters (492 feet).

Rapidly rising temperatures and increasingly frequent and severe storms are eroding the Batavia Coast coastline in Geraldton, which is over 400 kilometers (249 miles) up the coast from Perth.

The red-and-white-banded lighthouse was the first all-steel signal in the country, with 192 iron plates transported from England for its construction nearly 150 years ago, the ABC noted.

The Geraldton Marine Rescue building, just feet from the lighthouse, was torn down in 2024 before it could be captured by the ocean. There are around 170 homes nearby as well.

Why is this important?

"It's a hugely iconic part of Geraldton's identity, our sense of place, our sense of ownership, our sense of community," maritime historian Howard Gray told the ABC. "So many of our stories, our heritage stories, are linked to that lighthouse."

The local council engages in managed retreat in its bid to adapt to the effects of burning fuels such as gas and coal for energy, which produces pollution and traps heat in the atmosphere. This, in turn, has changed the climate and pushed coastal communities, including those in Western Australia, into perilous positions.

Mitigation measures can be prohibitively expensive, and residents often do not want to leave their homes. In this case, the lighthouse could be deconstructed and moved elsewhere.

What's being done about the Point Moore Lighthouse?

Through the CoastWA initiative, the Western Australian government has spent millions of dollars to protect and rehabilitate the state's coastline from erosion. The Department of Planning, Lands, and Heritage told the ABC that Geraldton had received 80,000 Australian dollars (about $56,737) for beach monitoring projects.

Locals are worried the lighthouse will be lost to a sea of red tape.

"There's no will to address the situation," Gray said. "It becomes a bureaucratic contest between local, state, and federal government, who's going to pay for it and whose responsibility it is."

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