Au revoir, ReefHQ

reef HQ building noticeReef HQ Aquarium is about to close for a year for an extensive rebuilding project.

The whole structure is thirty years old and is looking tired; quite apart from that, its surrounding have changed: a building which was a great use of the site when it was shared by the Magnetic Island ferry terminal and the Omnimax theatre is now awkward, almost dysfunctional. The big reef and predator tanks will stay where they are, for obvious reasons, but everything else will move. It will take at least a year, and it starts in February.

Continue reading “Au revoir, ReefHQ”

Charlie Veron: A Life Underwater

veron life underwater coverCharlie Veron: A Life Underwater

Penguin Viking, 2017

As has happened with other books, particularly where I have some personal connection to their authors, I have come across a published review which says what I would have said (and says it at least as well as I could have said it) and decided that it was better for me to quote excerpts than to write my own review.

The quotations below are drawn from the extended review by Tim Elliott for the SMH (you can read it in full here).

… Equal parts memoir, coral reef primer and requiem to a planet, [A Life Underwater] charts a career that could scarcely be imagined today, a love affair with science birthed from childhood wonderment, free-range academia and happy accidents.

… Veron’s achievements are, quite literally, unprecedented. He was the first to compile a global taxonomy of corals – a monumental task that effectively became the cornerstone for all later learning. He was the first to show that, contrary to received wisdom, the Indo-Philippines archipelago has the world’s greatest diversity of coral, not the Great Barrier Reef.

A Life Underwater is a very approachable introduction to reef science since it allows us to learn the science sequentially through Veron’s own journey of discovery. Continue reading “Charlie Veron: A Life Underwater”

Having kittens

It is an embarrassingly long time since my last post but a large part of the reason is that I was busy doing other good things, so I don’t feel quite so bad about the gap as I would otherwise have done. My major project was setting up the website for Kittens for the Reef, a cute video which I think everyone should watch:

Kittens for the Reef was launched on May 31 by one of its stars, Dr Charlie Veron (Fluffy couldn’t make it) at Townsville’s Eco-fiesta, an annual event which brings together all sorts of greenies. I attended and enjoyed it, as I have in previous years.

There is usually a new gadget or idea which catches my attention more than the others, and this year it was a cleverly designed and engineered portable solar power system from SolairForce. Continue reading “Having kittens”

Dredging the Reef to export coal

I try not to spend too much time on politically divisive issues here on Green Path but some are just too close to me, for one reason or another, to pass over in silence. GBRMPA’s recent decision to allow dumping of dredge spoil in Great Barrier Reef waters is one such.

Like many others I saw it as a betrayal of all that GBRMPA is meant to stand for. The very first sentence of the Authority’s self-description is, “The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is responsible for managing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park so it’s protected for the future.”  Similarly, the “Chairman’s message” on the site begins, “Our fundamental obligation is to protect the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the World Heritage Area. We do this by striving to ensure all human uses of the Park are ecologically sustainable and that the ecosystem’s natural functions, especially resilience, are maintained,” and it ends, “Key issues for the Reef now are the effects of climate change and declining water quality, commercial and recreational fishing pressures, ports and shipping [my emphasis] and coastal development. Our challenge is to assess, advise on, and implement policies to ensure the cumulative effects of all these issues are not leading towards a long-term decline in the environmental quality of the Great Barrier Reef.”

Accordingly, we should all be able to expect GBRMPA to do everything it can to protect the Reef and feel entitled to some level of disappointment when it fails.

Continue reading “Dredging the Reef to export coal”

The Great Barrier Reef – a discovery guide

gbrcoverThe Great Barrier Reef – a Queensland Museum Discovery Guide

Principal author: Greg Czechura

Published by the Queensland Museum, 2013; 440 pp.; $59.95

This handsome volume joins a long list of books with the same title and similar contents. They have appeared every five years or so since 1968 and one might well ask why we need yet another. The answer is twofold: we know a lot more about the reef now than we have ever known before, and the photography has improved tremendously.

The visual impact of the newer books is stunning, and makes the older books (good as they were for the time) look very dull. The present book showcases outstandingly good images and many are further enhanced by black backgrounds – at a certain cost in legibility of the white-on-black text, unfortunately.

Colour photography 1968 (lower left) onwards
Colour photography 1968 (lower left) onwards

The publishers call their book a “discovery guide” and it falls somewhere between a reference book and a coffee-table book. An introduction leads into chapters on geology, habitats, corals, algae, sponges, cnidarians, etc, and then, in the last quarter of the book, the human history of the reef: indigenous history, European exploration, tourism and management. The chapter authors, mostly curators from the Queensland Museum, are experts in their fields but can’t give us much detail because most of the page space is allocated to pictures. I found myself happily browsing but rarely settling to read steadily, and I think most readers will do the same.

Older books
Reef books displayed
Reef books 1968 onwards

I will leave a full review to someone better qualified than myself. Meanwhile, Parish’s book (2007) at front left in my photo is frankly in the coffee-table category – lavish photography but minimal text. The Reader’s Digest book (1985, reprinted 1990 and maybe later) on the right of the back row is still available new, from Amazon if not locally. The earlier books cannot match their quality and in any event are probably no longer in print.