Introduction - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 12

Government departments, as Bowen and Bowen (2002, p291) acknowledged,
and the archival records of those various departments contain gaps and variations
in their coverage. As a result of such limitations, this narrative is incomplete,
and the evidence for some environmental changes is suggestive rather than
conclusive. To some extent, oral history evidence could be used to fill gaps in the
archival records.
A further, significant limitation of my research was the lack of an Indigenous
Australian perspective towards changes in the Great Barrier Reef since European
settlement, despite attempts to recruit informants from Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities. Unfortunately, therefore, my environmental history
does not represent Indigenous Australian perspectives towards the activities
and impacts of European settlers in the Great Barrier Reef. Further research,
incorporating Indigenous Australian perspectives, could provide an important,
alternative perspective towards this subject. Consequently, my study contains
a Eurocentric bias. I have not attempted to write a postcolonial account of
Indigenous Australian resistance to European perceptions and uses of the Great
Barrier Reef; nor did I attempt to investigate the ways in which Indigenous
Australian interactions with the Great Barrier Reef were altered by European
settlement, and with what economic, social, cultural and political consequences.
Those areas of inquiry remain valuable directions for further research.
Outline of this topic
The material that follows begins, in Chapter 2, with a more detailed account
of the methods used in my research; the chapter outlines the sources of data
available and the techniques of data collection and analysis used. It also contains
a discussion of the particular issues involved in using archival materials and
oral histories in my research. This is followed, in Chapter 3, by a brief overview
of the natural context of changes in the Great Barrier Reef. In particular, the
importance of two natural processes is emphasised: the geomorphological
evolution of the continental shelf during the Holocene, and the occurrence of
tropical cyclones which frequently cause damage to coral reefs. The purpose of that
brief account is to demonstrate that historical changes in the Great Barrier Reef
occur against a background of ongoing degradation of coral reefs in this region.
Further contextual material is presented in Chapter 4, which briefly outlines
the historical context for my narrative: the spread of European settlement in
coastal Queensland. The chapter describes the northward expansion of European
settlement and economic activities in the region, which depended on safe
navigation through Queensland coastal waters, as well as on the closer settlement
that accompanied the spread of sugar cane farming. The expansion of sugar cane
farming was accompanied by substantial environmental degradation, as Griggs
(2005, 2006, 2007, 2011) has acknowledged, due to deforestation, soil erosion
and swamp drainage, which led to enhanced sediment and nutrient runoff to the
Great Barrier Reef. Commercial fisheries and tourism in the Great Barrier Reef,