ABSTRACT
This book provides an environmental history of the coral reefs, islands and marine wildlife of the Great Barrier Reef. In doing so, it presents evidence of a multitude of human activities in, and impacts on, that ecosystem. Not all of the important activities and impacts that have affected the Great Barrier Reef are covered here; some – such as human impacts on fish populations, as well as the effects of shipping, dredging and port development in the region – require further research to document their significance. Nevertheless, it has been possible to reconstruct a wide range of activities and impacts, based on the use of documentary and oral sources. Many of those activities and impacts involved the over-exploitation of living resources. The historical fisheries for bêche-de-mer, pearl-shell and trochus, some of which dated from at least 1827, caused sustained and intensive impacts on those marine resources, particularly during their early, unregulated periods of operation (Chapter 5). As a result of over-harvesting, reports of the scarcity of bêche-de-mer were made as early as 1890; by 1908, the severe depletion of bêche-de-mer and pearl oysters had been recognised, and restrictions of those fisheries became necessary. However, continued fishing for those resources meant that, by 1950, the bêche-de-mer, pearl-shell and trochus resources of the Great Barrier Reef were almost certainly significantly degraded from their status prior to European settlement, and those resources may not yet have recovered.
