Introduction - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 9

subsequently, it is nevertheless possible to write an environmental history
narrative of changes in this ecosystem; for, as Dovers (1994, p4) has argued, there
are 'good stories' to be told about the ways in which humans have interacted with
their environment. The collection of evidence from documentary sources and
oral histories of the Great Barrier Reef is valuable because, taken together, this
evidence forms the basis of a 'convincing non-fiction' about the Great Barrier Reef
that includes the perspectives of coral collectors, shell collectors, boat operators,
fishers, farmers, divers, scientists, environmental managers, government officials,
conservationists and naturalists, among many others (Cronon, 1992, p1373).
Despite postmodern claims about the impossibility of reconstructing past
environments, such an environmental history is necessary in order to provide
rich, contextual descriptions of changes in the Great Barrier Reef. My account
attempts to locate human activities within a context of changing environmental
conditions, to allow an evaluation of human impacts to be made and to
illuminate some key aspects of the changing relationship between humans, their
activities and the Great Barrier Reef. In addition, in evaluating the potential for
qualitative sources to inform environmental history research into an ecosystem of
immense scientific interest and importance, this research has inevitably crossed
disciplinary boundaries (Powell, 1996; Dovers, 2000). Interdisciplinary work
of this kind can potentially offer fresh insights into the changing relationship
between humans and the Great Barrier Reef since European settlement, and into
the consequent environmental changes.
Scope and limitations
As an environmental history narrative, this account is concerned principally with
the changing relationship between humans, their activities and the Great Barrier
Reef for the historical period, which in this case is primarily the period since
around 1860, when the spread of European settlement in coastal Queensland
commenced. (However, some earlier European exploitation of resources in the
Great Barrier Reef - such as bêche-de-mer fishing - had already occurred by that
year.) The narrative focuses on the period until around 1960, after which an
increasing body of scientific literature documenting changes in the Great Barrier
Reef emerged. In general, therefore, the narrative presented here spans roughly
a single century (1860-1960) of unprecedented changes in the ways in which
humans encountered, experienced and exploited the Great Barrier Reef. There
is some justification for focusing on this particular century of change in the
ecosystem: it is a period for which scant scientific data have been collected, yet
it was the century during which the most intensive exploitation of the Great
Barrier Reef has ever occurred. Many historical industries operated in the region
during that time - often with minimal, if any, regulation - and significant
transformations of some parts of the Great Barrier Reef occurred. However, in
some places, for some particular themes, and where especially informative sources
were available, the narrative extends beyond that timeframe (both earlier and