The impacts of coral mining - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 172

Diehm, who recently installed a £500 plant on North Barnard Island, and
has already supplied 200 tons of pulverised coral to Innisfail farmers. Mr
Diehm stated today that one farmer had put twenty tons in his fields and the
cane treated has shown an advance of two feet six inches over other cane.
[…] He intends to bring regular supplies of the fertiliser to Innisfail. Recently
Mr Diehm obtained additional gear from England and hopes to operate on a
larger scale now that pioneering difficulties had been overcome. There were
almost unlimited supplies of coral to be drawn on . 20
By mid-1929, Diehm had extracted and crushed coral at Hutchinson Island for
at least three years.
Coral was mined not only from islands and cays: it was also removed from
inshore coral reefs in the northern Great Barrier Reef, which were more accessible
from the mainland and more convenient to work. In 1929, a lease to mine coral
at Alexandra Reef, near Port Douglas, was granted to G. Averkoff of Port Douglas
who, like Diehm, intended to produce lime for sugar cane fields . 21 The location of
the coral reefs was between Yule Point and the Mowbray River, and the coral lay
'approximately 5 chains below high water mark' (Figure 11.4) . As the adjacent
land was mangrove swamp and the removal of coral would not interfere with any
other industry, the Secretary of the Queensland Marine Board, J. D. W. Dick,
suggested that this application should be granted subject to a royalty of 1 d per
cubic yard on all coral removed. Averkoff then constructed a lime plant and
supplied coral lime to the MCMC for fifteen years, until his operation was taken
over by the McDowell Brothers, who continued to deliver the lime to sugar cane
farmers (Kerr, 1995, p94) . 22
Several other applications were made to mine coral during the same period.
In 1929, High Island, adjacent to the Frankland Group, was the subject of a coral
mining application by R. McGuigan, whose application was considered at the
same time as those of Diehm. At Pialba, Henry M. Taylor stated that he had access
to thousands of tons of coral and claimed the sole right to remove this material
using an oil engin e. 23 C ompanies as well as individuals made applications to mine
coral. In 1929, Great Barrier Reef Fisheries Ltd (1929, p5) of Sydney proposed
to manufacture 'natural fertilisers obtained from burnt coral'. In the same year,
a syndicate of investors in Sydney and Melbourne applied to mine coral and
limestone from seven islands in Queensland waters - including Masthead Island
- in order to supply a lime works in Brisban e. 24 No evidence was found in the
QSA to indicate whether or not those leases were granted.
By the late 1920s, therefore, coral mining was regarded as an industry that
had the potential to generate significant profits for venture capitalists. In 1928,
Edward Sanders of Cooktown applied for leases to dredge coral sand from twelve
locations, comprising more than 50 acres, between Mossman and Masthead
Islan d. 25 A syndicate formed by Sanders argued that 100,000 tons of agricultural
lime could be used each year in the sugar districts - which they claimed covered
300,000 acres - and that around 10,000 tons of burnt lime were already being