Other impacts on coral reefs - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 194

The earliest island tourist resorts included Double, Green and Magnetic
Islands, which were more accessible from the coastal centres at Cairns and
Townsville than the offshore islands. In particular, the resorts at Green and
Magnetic Islands, which were serviced by the Hayles Magnetic Pty Ltd ferries,
were frequently visited. By 1925, the Green Island resort had become so popular
with visitors that W. W. M. McCulloch, the Superintendent of the Yarrabah
Aboriginal Mission, expressed concern that the island was being degraded. In a
report to the Queensland Chief Protector of Aboriginals, he stated:
Green Island at present owing to excursionists is like a sewerage farm and I
have been told that several influential Cairns folk, including the Mayor […]
and some of the Councillors, who have always spent their holidays there,
want to go to Turtle Bay this year instead . 21
Besides Green Island, the early development of tourist resort islands also
took place in the Whitsunday Group. In 1935, A. Busuttin, the Lessee of
Brampton Island, stated that a small village resort, with accommodation for
50 or 60 people and other facilities, had been constructed on that island since
about 1930 . 22
More extensive construction of tourist facilities occurred in 1938 and 1939
at Lady Musgrave Island, in the Capricorn-Bunker Group, and at various
Whitsunday Islands. In 1938, H. F. Baker reported that the construction of a
tourist resort, including six cottages and other facilities, was about to commence
at Lady Musgrave Islan d. 23 In the same year, Caldwell (1938) acknowledged
the popularity of the fishing grounds around the Whitsunday Islands, several of
which were being developed as tourist resorts. By 1939, however, E. O. Marks,
the Honorary Secretary of the GBRC, acknowledged that some islands of the
Great Barrier Reef - especially in the vicinity of the tourist resorts - had been
degraded by the thoughtless behaviour of tourists . 24 In the same year, C. J. Trist,
the Secretary of the Queensland Sub-Department of Forestry, wrote:
Despite the protective measures that are already in existence to preserve the
natural beauty of the islands of the Barrier Reef, complaints are still being
made that vandalism occurs. Thoughtlessness rather than vandalism can
better describe the desire of this temporary [tourist] population to souvenir
and interfere with the natural beauty of these islands . 25
By 1940, the impacts of tourism in the Great Barrier Reef were concentrated
in the vicinity of ten major resort islands, from Heron to Green Island, as shown
in Figure 12.5. Lady Musgrave and Heron Islands were accessed from Bundaberg
and Gladstone respectively; the Whitsunday Islands were reached from Mackay
and Proserpine; Magnetic Island was reached from Townsville; Dunk Island
services departed from Tully; and Green Island was accessed from Cairns (QGTB,
1940, p3).