The Coral Battleground (ebook)

Argumento de The Coral Battleground (ebook)

the Great Barrier Reef is still the closest most people will come to Eden, 'Judith Wright The Great Barrier Reef lies off the coast of Queensland: 2000 kilometres of spectacular coral reefs, sand cays and islands, Australia's most precious marine possession. Teeming with life, it covers 350,000 square kilometres. In the late 1960s the Reef was threatened with limestone mining and oil drilling. A small group of dedicated conservationists in Queensland - John B'sst, Judith Wright, Len Webb and others - battled to save the Ellison Reef from coral-limestone mining and the Swain Reefs from oil exploration. The group later swelled to encompass scientists, trade unionists and politicians throughout Australia, and led in 1976 to the establishment of a guardian body: the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. That it still survives is a legacy of activists, artists, poets, ecologists and students. In 1967 they were branded as 'cranks'; now they should be recognised as 'visionaries'. There are not many success stories in the attempts we make to save especially important elements of the natural world from our own greeds and needs. Here at the end of the twentieth century, we have lost or destroyed a great deal already, and we know that much more is likely to vanish. But the story of the rescue of the Great Barrier Reef still throws a light on the present and gives hope for the future.0