Other impacts on coral reefs - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 193

Figure 12.4 A jetty constructed at Green Island, c. 1956. Source: Image No. P55090, Image
Library, Cairns Historical Society, Cairns
Pty Ltd, was granted a lease to develop Green Island as a tourist resort; that lease
involved the provision of regular public ferry services to the island. In 1946, the
jetty at Green Island was destroyed in a cyclone and was reconstructed by the
Cairns Harbour Board; the new jetty, illustrated in Figure 12.4, was replaced by
another in 1960-1961, also built by the Cairns Harbour Board (Baxter, 1990;
QEPA, 2003a) . 19 In addition to the jetties at Green and Magnetic Islands,
another jetty had been built at Molle Island by 1969, which extended as far
as the outer edge of the reef . 20 The construction of jetties at those islands was
significant because the structures facilitated access to, and further development
of, the islands and their reefs.
Tourist resorts were constructed on many islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
Before around 1900, the relative inaccessibility of many islands had precluded
their use by large numbers of visitors. However, subsequently the islands became
increasingly popular as tourism destinations. Davitt (1898, p282) described their
attraction in the following account:
There is no other coastal scenery in the world to equal this in changing
vistas of loveliness and grandeur. You move along in endless windings in and
around the islands of coral, with their silvery sands and grassy slopes, and
wooded vesture of varied foliage. I journeyed by night in one trip, and by day
in another, through this enchanted world of coral islands, and had a double
enjoyment of its scenic beauties.
Davitt (1898, p282) also described the Great Barrier Reef islands as 'Nature's
necklace of coral islands', although even in his account the islands were viewed
from a passing vessel rather than regarded as destinations in their own right.