The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

by Iain McCalman

  My warmest thanks and admiration also go to senior science editor Amanda Moon and the wonderful team at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, including Daniel Gerstle and Laird Gallagher. It is a pure pleasure to work with such clever, professional, and caring people. The marketing and advertising of books and media has become an increasingly complex and demanding process these days, and for expertly managing this side of things I also thank Jeff Seroy.

  I owe so much to my longtime research assistant and adviser, Katherine Anderson, who has managed with her usual calm efficiency to give birth both to this book and to a gorgeous baby girl, Corisande.

  The writing and research of The Reef has been pursued in tandem with filming and other forms of digital production, with the aim that these media should feed off and fertilize one another. This fusion has been made possible by the friendship and brilliance of Mike Bluett of Northern Dogs Television and Digital. Working with him and learning from him has been one of the most energizing experiences of my late academic career. Among other things he has convinced me that digital and written histories can, and must, learn to work together in a creative symbiosis.

  Around us we also gathered a splendid team of digital experts and friends: Sam Wilson, film editor; James Stewart, sound engineer; Dean Miller, cameraman; and Andrew McCalman on video and stills, as well as Keren Moran and Noa Peer, Web creators extraordinaire of the Sydney digital company Spring in Alaska.

  Our visits to Reef sites in order to film introduced us to a range of special individuals for whom working to protect the Reef and its peoples remains urgent, unfinished business. Here I would like particularly to mention Alberta Hornsby, a Guugu Yimithirr knowledge custodian of Hopevale and Cooktown, and a historian of great passion, sagacity, and balance. I am deeply in her debt. At Dunk Island we were inspired by the local knowledge of a longtime island inhabitant and nature lover, Susi Kirk, an inheritor of the mantle of Ted Banfield if ever there was one. At Lockhart River we were treated with extraordinary generosity: Paul Piva loaned us one of his four-wheel-drive vehicles and refused to take payment, while Wayne Butcher, the energetic mayor and community leader, provided us with a boat and his scarce gas supply, and then gave his Uutaalnganu-descended staff time off from work to talk with us about their ancestor Anco and the days when their community still lived in their Sandbeach country near Night Island.

  An early visit to Rivendell, the home of coral scientists John “Charlie” Veron and Mary Stafford-Smith, introduced me to Charlie’s incredible life and work; and he later also entrusted me with a moving private memoir written for his children. This began a relationship that has given vital shape and purpose to my book, though he is not to blame for my mistakes. The Great Barrier Reef and our planet owe these two public-spirited scientists an incalculable debt.

  If one is lucky universities can provide supportive and inspirational environments of a different kind. Friendships and informal conversations with colleagues at Sydney and other universities have been more sustaining than these scholars can know. Here I would particularly like to thank Shane White, Mike McDonnell, David Schlosberg, Alison Bashford, Mark McKenna, Jodi Frawley, Julia Horne, Duncan Ivison, Kirsten McKenzie, Jude Philp, Leah Lui-Chivezhe, Michael Davis, Clare Corbould, Ann Curthoys, John Docker, Barbara Caine, Leigh Boucher, Nicholas Thomas, Jim Chandler, John Barrell, Harriet Guest, Jon Mee, Libby Robin, and my special fount of science knowledge, Lachlan McCalman.

  The actual funding to enable research for this book and its associated digital productions came through the generosity of the Australian Research Council, whose Linkage grant also brought me into collaboration with Michael Westaway of the Queensland Museum and with my old friends Michael Crayford and Nigel Erskine of the Australian National Maritime Museum. Crucially it also cemented a collaborative partnership with John Mullen, director of Silentworld Foundation, and his wife, Jackie, which has ripened into a warm friendship. John’s knowledge of and passion for early Australian maritime history, as well as for archaeological diving in sometimes perilous circumstances, and for collecting, preserving, and displaying vital objects of Australian heritage stands as a salutary example to historical and museum professionals everywhere.

  As usual I have depended on the generosity and expertise of librarians and archivists for my intellectual infrastructure of manuscripts and illustrations. I would like to thank the Fisher Library, University of Sydney; the National Library of Australia; the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales; the Australian Museum, Sydney; the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; the Royal Historical Society of Queensland; the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland; the Fryer Library, University of Queensland; the James Cook University Library; the Griffith University Library; the Australian National Maritime Museum; the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; the Australian Marine Conservation Society; the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland; and the Library of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville.

  Finally I would like to acknowledge my intellectual debts to those historians on whose work I have depended. We all stand on the shoulders of our predecessors and none more so than me. The late James and Margarita Bowen are the great pioneers of Barrier Reef history, and I have followed in their wake. Bill Gammage’s extraordinary new book The Biggest Estate on Earth taught me to understand Indigenous ecologies in wholly new ways. Reading Stephanie Anderson’s wonderful translation and study of the life of Narcisse Pelletier—enriched by the anthropological expertise of Athol Chase—was how I came to know about Anco, the most fascinating Reef castaway of all. I thank Stephanie for her generosity in sharing her knowledge and insight with me.

  Likewise I could not have written about early Australian marine and maritime history without the writings of Alan Frost and John Gascoigne; about James Cook and Joseph Banks without the great texts of J. C. Beaglehole; about Eliza Fraser without Kay Schaffer and Jim Davidson; about Barbara Thompson without Ray Warren’s research and D. R. Moore’s marvelous transcripts and anthropological analyses; about William Saville-Kent without the research of A. J. Harrison, Kate Summerscale, and Noreen Kyle; and about Alex Agassiz and Alfred Mayor without the prior works of D. Dobbs, L. D. Stephens, and D. R. Calder. Phoebe Ford located, copied, and provided me with valuable documents from the Busst papers; and Emma Dortins allowed me to quote from her recent PhD thesis, which contains important original information on the castaway James Morrill.

  My grasp of the science and ecology of coral reefs and corals—such as it is—would have been far worse without Charlie Veron’s brilliant A Reef in Time, and the sparkling wit and erudition of the University College London geneticist and science writer Steve Jones. And nobody can write about northern Australian Aboriginal history without immersing themselves in the writings of Henry Reynolds, or hope to understand the early history and culture of the Torres Strait without the work of Jeremy Beckett. My thanks to you all.

  INDEX

  The index that appears in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  “GBR” refers to the Great Barrier Reef.

  Aberdeen

  Aborigines: agriculture by; alleged cannibalism of; art by; Banfield and; contemporary; conversion of; Cook and; displacement of; Europeans adopted by; Europeans aided by; Europeans captured by; Europeans in conflict with; Europeans’ friendships with; Europeans’ impressions of; Europeans passing as; Europeans’ reconciliation with; Flinders and; food and; Fraser and; GBR and; genocide of; history and; Jukes and; as laborers for Europeans; rights to land and sea of; shelters of; slander of; stewardship of nature by; Torres Strait Islanders and; trade and; water collection by; Wright on; see also indigenous peoples; Torres Strait Islanders; specific clans

  Abridge

  Abrolhos Reefs

  Aburda
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br />   ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation)

  acidification

  Acropora

  Actiniaria

  Adams, James

  Adolphus Island

  adoption, of Europeans by indigenous people

  “Adventures of Louis de Rougemont, The”

  Advocate

  Agassiz, Alex; background of; character of; Darwin and; father of; in GBR; legacy of; Mayor and; successor of; theory of; wealth of; wife of

  Agassiz, Cecile

  Agassiz, Louis

  Age of the Anthropocene

  agriculture

  AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science)

  Albany Passage

  alcohol

  Alcyonaria

  Alfred Hospital

  algae; symbiosis with coral

  Allan, Joyce

  Allen, John

  Allen, W. H.

  America

  Amglo, see Pelletier, Narcisse

  Ampol

  Anco, see Pelletier, Narcisse

  Anderson, Stephanie

  Andrews, Ernest

  anemones

  Anglican mission

  Animals and Bird Act of 1921

  animals: eating of, see fishing; hunting; diversity of, see biodiversity; see also specific animals

  anthropology, race and; see also Aborigines; indigenous peoples; Torres Strait Islanders

  aquariums

  Ararat

  Argyll, Duke of

  Arnold, Matthew

  arrow worms

  art; science and; see also artists aboard ships; photography

  artificial cultivation: of oysters; of pearls

  artists aboard ships

  artists’ colonies

  astraea

  Atarrka

  Attenborough, David

  Aureed Island

  Australia; centennials of; circumnavigation of; England’s claiming of; fabrications about; GBR’s ownership and; naming of; questioning history of; zoology in

  Australian bee-eater

  Australian Conservation Foundation

  Australian Dictionary of Dates and Men of the Time

  Australian Imperial Force

  Australian Institute of Marine Science

  Australian Museum

  Australian Seashores (Bennett et al.)

  Australian, The

  Authentic and Faithful History of the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marten (Curtis)

  Back, Ken

  Badtjala

  Badu Island

  Badu people

  Bage, Freda

  Baily

  Baki

  Balfour Fellowship

  Ballantyne, R. M.

  Bama

  Bandjin clan

  Banfield, Bertha Golding passim; background of; health of; philosophy of

  Banfield, Edmund James “Ted”; Aborigines and; background of; as beachcomber; books by; Dunk Island settled by; first Dunk Island visit by; health of; as imperialist; inspiration for; land owned by; legacy of; money and; newspaper career of; in Townsville

  Banfield, Eliza

  Banfield, Harry

  Banfield, Jabez Walter

  Banks, Joseph passim; coral and; Flinders and; foraging by

  Barker College

  Barrett, Charles

  Barrier Reef lagoons

  barrier reefs, naming of; see also reef formation; reefs

  Barrow, John

  Bath

  Battery Point

  Batt Reef

  Bauer, Ferdinand

  Baxter, John

  Bayley, William

  beachcombers

  Beagle (ship)

  Beaglehole, J. C.

  bêche-de-mer

  Bedarra Island

  bee-eaters

  bees

  Belidi

  Bell, Hugh

  Bendigo

  Bennett, Elizabeth

  Bennett, Isobel “Issie”

  Berlin

  Bernard, Henry

  Bicton

  Big Shadow (boat)

  Bindal clan

  Bingil Bay

  biodiversity; of coral; of reefs; regional

  birds: Dunk Island sanctuary for; on Hayman; hunting for; oil spills and

  Birri-Gubba language

  Bjelke-Peterson, Joh

  Blackman, Barbara

  Blackwood, Francis

  Blake, Chris

  bleaching, of corals

  Bligh, William

  Blue Lagoon, The (Stacpoole)

  Bluett, Mike

  Boardman, Bill

  body modification

  bommies

  Bongaree

  Booby Island

  boomerangs

  boree

  Boroto

  Botany Bay

  Bounty (ship)

  Bournemouth Natural Science Society

  Bowen

  Bowen, George

  Bowen, James

  Bowen, Margarita

  Boydang Island

  Bramble

  Brammo Bay passim; naming of

  Breaksea Spit

  Brierly, Oswald; background of; drawings by; interviews by; language and; post-Rattlesnake life of

  Brisbane

  Brisbane Courier

  bristle worms

  British-Aboriginal resource wars; see also Aborigines: Europeans in conflict with; Aborigines: rights to land and sea of

  British Admiralty

  British Association for the Advancement of Science

  British Empire: Australia claimed for; trade in; see also Aborigines: displacement of

  British India and Australian Steam Navigation Company

  British Museum

  British Reef Committee

  Broad Sound

  Broca, Paul

  Brocken

  Brockett, William

  Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences

  Brown, Charles

  Brown, Robert

  brown-winged tern

  Buchanan, Gwynneth

  Bungaree

  bungwa root

  Bunker Island

  Burdekin river region

  Burdon-Jones, Cyril

  Burke, Edmund

  Burstall, Tim

  Busst, Alison “Ali”

  Busst, John passim; background of; Ellison Reef and; friendship with Webb and Wright of; marine park and; petroleum industry and; trade unions and;

  Bustard Bay

  Butcher, Wayne

  butterflies

  button industry

  By Land and Sea I Leave Ephemeral Spirit (Foley)

  Cairncross Islets

  Cairns Argus

  Cambridge expedition; Aboriginal servants for; background to; boat party of; cost of; difficulties of; equipment for; gender and; physiological group of; publications of; publicity for; shore party of; symbiosis and

  Cambridge Gulf

  Cambridge Review

  Camm, Ronald

  Campbell, W. D.

  cannibalism, alleged

  Cape Cleveland

  Cape Direction

  Cape Flattery

  Cape Grafton

  Cape Grenville

  Cape Keppel

  Cape Pallarenda

  Cape Sidmouth

  Cape Tribulation

  Cape Upstart

  Cape York

  Capricornia group

  carbonate rock

  carbon dioxide

  Cardwell

  Carisbrook Castle (ship)

  Carnegie Institution of Washington

  Carr, William

  Carson, Rachel

  Cary, Liz

  Cave of Falling Stars

  Cave of Swiftlets

  cays, formation of

  Central Indo-Pacific

  Challenger (ship)

  Charles Eaton (ship); public response to

  Charlie

  Chase, Athol

  China

  China Navigation Company

 
; Chisholm, Alec

  chromolithography

  Church of England

  clams, giant

  Clare, Patricia

  Clarke, Dodd

  climate change: effects on reefs of; fatalism toward; reef formation and

  Clipperton Atoll

  Clump Point

  Cnidaria

  Cocos atolls

  Coffs Harbor

  Colahan, Colin

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

  Collaroy

  Collins, Mrs.

  colonialism: tactics of; see also under Aborigines; British Empire

  Colonial Office

  commensalism, see symbiosis

  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization

  communalism

  community ecology

  computer modeling

  Confessions of a Beachcomber, The (Banfield); publication of

  Congress of Entomology

  Congress of the Australian Advancement of Science

  Connolly family

  “Conservation as a Concept” (Wright)

  conservationists; ecology and; Ellison Reef campaign of; extinction and; public opinion of; stewardship ethic of; successes of; tourism and

  Coobee Cotanyou

  Cook Islands

  Cook, James; Aborigines and; background of; dilemma of; Flinders’ rivalry with; ignorance of; mapping by; marooning of; mission of; popularization of; reef navigated by; reenactment of voyage of

  Cook’s Look

  Cooktown

  Coonanglebah

  cooperation

  Coote, Gillian

  copepods

  Coral Battlefield (Wright)

  Coral Geographic

  Coral Island, The (Ballantyne)

  coral islands, see corals; islands; specific islands

  Corallian Sea

  coralline limestone

  Coral Reef Symposium

  corals: age of; algae and; Banfield on; beauty of; bleaching of; continua of; Darwin on; death of; deep drilling of; diversity of; energy for; Flinders on; growth rates of; Jukes on; living; photography of; polyps of; reef building by, see reef formation; Saville-Kent on; scientific priorities for study of; sediment and; spawning by; taxonomy of; temperature and; tropical; Veron on; see also reefs

  Coral Sea

  Corals in Space and Time (Veron)

  Corals of the World (Veron)

  Coral Triangle

  Corder, William

  Cornell University

  Corralis, Joseph

  Country Party

  Courier, The