The impacts of coral mining - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 167

144ºE
13ºS

GREAT

Cooktown

Snapper Island

Alexandra Reef

Oyster Cay

Upolu Cay

Green Island

Cairns

G

Sudbury Cay

BARRIER

Innisfail Jessie Island

Hutchinson Island

Kings Reef

Beaver Reef

Unnamed sand cay near Lucinda

Townsville

REEF

QUEENSLAND

Bowen

Proserpine

Coral mining locations

Sandpiper Reef

Mackay

0 KILOMETRES 200

144ºE
22ºS

151ºE
22ºS

Figure 11.2 Coral mining locations in the Great Barrier Reef, 1900-1940. Source: Author,
compiled from archival files contained in PRV8340/1 Item 1, QSA; OHC 16, 2 September
2003; OHC 17, 2 September 2003; OHC 28, 19 September 2003

Another of the earliest operations took place at Snapper Island, near Cape
Tribulation, where Jerry Doyle operated a lime kiln. The kiln was constructed
in 1901 by the Mossman Central Mill Company (MCMC), which signed a
contract with Jerry Doyle to provide burnt lime, and he produced 'ample supplies'
of lime and fertiliser (Kerr, 1995, p93; QEPA, 2003c). The lime kiln was fired
using timber from the nearby Daintree rainforest, which was transported to the
island aboard the Nellie , and coral was obtained from the accessible and extensive
fringing reef on the south-western side of the island; two archival sources describe
the track that was cut to allow the firewood to be transported to the lime kil n. 4
The company opened a grinding plant to improve the quality of the coral lime,
and Doyle's operation was still in progress in 1911 when the MCMC entered