jennifer

CORAL reefs in shallow waters adjacent to the Australian mainland are considered particularly susceptible to coral bleaching, and also smothering by sediment from turbid water. This was all lamented a week or so ago, including by Sussan Ley, the Federal Environment Minister. Relying on a review of more than 1,000 reports by academics who don’t get out enough, she told the nation that the prognosis for the Great Barrier Reef, and particularly inshore reefs, is very poor.

One of the papers that helped shaped this opinion is by Tara Clark (and colleagues) entitled ‘Historical photographs revisited: A case study for dating and characterising recent loss of coral cover on the inshore Great Barrier Reef’ published by Nature (DOI: 10.1038/srep19285).

The historical photographs were taken circa 1890 and 1915 of corals in the vicinity of Stone Island, off Bowen, and they show healthy corals including species of the branching coral Acropora spp.. The historic photographs have Gloucester Island and Gloucester passage as an iconic backdrop.

Tara Clark and colleagues concluded in the peer-reviewed paper published in 2016 that:

Using a combination of anecdotal, ecological and geochemical techniques, the results of this study provide a robust understanding of coral community change for Bramston Reef and Stone Island. In the late 19th and early 20th Century, historical photographs revealed large and abundant living tabular Acropora sp. and massive faviid colonies at Bramston Reef and high cover of both plating and branching Acropora sp. colonies at Stone Island. By contrast in 1994, no living Acropora colonies were found at either location and the majority of the large faviids that featured so prominently at Bramston Reef in c.1890 were dead, covered in algae and/or mud.

And further that:

In 2012 (eighteen years later), Bramston Reef was still characterized by many large faviid colonies, dead and overgrown by algae and sediment, as well as a large number of small living faviid colonies. Yet there was evidence of some small increase in coral cover, primarily driven by tabular Acropora sp. and other genera. In addition, living faviid colonies that appeared to be of equal size to their predecessors were also found in 2012, albeit scarc. At Stone Island, the reef crest was similar to that observed in 1994 with a substrate almost completely devoid of living corals.”

I visited Stone Island late August, and was surprised to find an abundance of Acropora spp. forming both plate and branching colonies. I saw and photographed large pink plate coral on 25th August — some more than 1 metre in diameter — at the reef edge just 30 metres from where Tara Clark and colleagues ended their transect as published in Nature.

I’ve named this coral reef — that Clark and others claim doesn’t exist — Clint’s reef after Clint Hempsall, the underwater cinematography who spent over an hour filming there on 25th August 2019.

This footage will hopefully be included in the film we are making about the inner reefs of the northern Whitsundays: an area that includes Bowen harbour and Stone Island. The footage should also be archived, so that like the 1890 and 1914 photographs it is available as a historic record, a snapshot in time of the state of these reefs.

The two days later, on 27th August, we visited a reef just around the headland from Clint’s reef, in the southern corner of the north-facing bay at Stone Island. The coral coverage here was much more extensive, and this bay also has a view across to Gloucester Island and Gloucester passage.

At this reef, that I’m calling Beige reef, my colleagues Rob McCulloch and Walter Starck estimated close to 100% coral coverage over perhaps twenty-five (25) hectares. I want to return to this reef and map it with my drone (Skido, of course).

There are two dominant coral species at Beige Reef – an Acropora sp. and Turbinaria mesenterina.

The genus Acropora is distinguished by having axial corallites at the tip of each branch, that are different in size, form and often colour from the radial corallites on the same branch. At Beige reef you can easily distinguish the axial corallites on the dominant Acropora species because they are florescent and glow either white or purple. So the branch is beige and the tip white or purple.

I’ve read that such shallow-water reef-building corals with these photoproteins that fluoresce are more resistant to bleaching when the photoproteins are positioned above the zooxanthellae to protect them from harsh light, as is in the case with this Acropora species at Beige reef. Bleaching occurs when the symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) are expelled when temperatures become too hot or too cold. Apparently in some deep water corals that fluoresce, the photoproteins are below the zooxanthellae to reflect the light back.

There are apparently over 130 species of Acropora and I would be keen to know the actual species at Beige reef… with these florescent tips.

Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to the specific species of Acropora that I have photographed?

It is possible to see the corallite and the tentacles in the close-up photograph.

I’m just learning how to take such pictures that are important for accurate coral identification. The next stage will be to include a scale, for reference … to know the size of the corallites.

Beige reef is a shallow inshore reef that would be more suspecting to bleaching from both exposure at low tide and also the water heating-up than any of the other reefs I snorkelled off-Bowen. Yet surprisingly there was little evidence of bleaching here — or at the other reefs.

The most damaged of the eight reefs that we snorkelled was at Middle Island, with much of the reef to the south-west of the island reduced to rubble by Cyclone Debbie which struck in early 2017.

The other dominant coral species at Beige Reef is Turbinaria mesenterina. This is a type of foliose coral in the family Dendrophylliidae. The individual polyps fuse to form what are called unifacial laminae, that look something like lettuce leaves made of limestone and all with a white trim.

I’ve read that this coral can self-clean, which is perhaps handy given it lives in relatively turbid inshore waters. Indeed there are mudflats and mangroves at Stone Island, and the Abbot Point coal terminal is not far away, as shown on the map.

These ‘lettuce leaf’ corals were mostly beige in colour, though there were also corals of the same species (T. mesenterina) that were a deep purple, as shown in the second photograph at the very top of this blog post. Both the purple and white forms have the same white trim around the perimeter.

Of course, the colour of a coral has everything to do with the species of symbiotic zooxanthellae, which is the species of symbiotic algae that lives in the coral. So, the same species of coral may be different colours and different species of coral the same colour.

At Beige reef there are a lot of corals that are a delicate beige colour, which is perhaps not for everyone. But I thought it a most beautiful coral reef.

It is a pity that this reef, Beige reef, is denied in the scientific report by Tara Clark and colleagues as published by Nature in 2016. And I find it surprising that Minister Ley can be so negative about the inshore reef because this was not my experience at all having just spent 10 days exploring 8 mostly inshore reefs in the Whitsundays including Beige and Clint Reefs that fringe Stone Island.

UPDATE 06/09/2019: THERE WAS AN ERROR WITH A DATE (I PHOTOGRAPHED THE PLATE CORAL AT CLINT’S REEF ON 25TH, NOT 26TH) AND I’VE MADE A COUPLE OF OTHER EDITS JUST NOW … 1PM ON 6TH SEPTEMBER. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE. ALSO, I’VE ADDED A PHOTOGRAPH. I SHALL STOP NOW. JEN

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Beige reef has been flown over with my drone, and there is over an hour of underwater cinematography from Clint Hempsall. This footage all needs to be archived … but first some of it will hopefully be included as part of a short film just on Beige reef and then there will be the longer film about all eight reefs. Subscribe at my website so you know when.

THE idea that the Great Barrier Reef is in need of saving from catastrophe is popular, especially among academics and politicians. In 2003, I published an article in the IPA Review entitled ‘Deceit in the Name of Conservation’ concerning the then Queensland Premier and Chief Scientist. In an earlier article entitled ‘WWF says Jump, Governments ask How High’ I explained the extent to which there was collusion within members of a Reef Protection Taskforce, that including activists and the CSIRO, to the extent that they felt a need to invent evidence of damage to the reef — least none existed.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull approved a $443 million grant to the tiny Great Barrier Reef Foundation. That grant includes an allowance of up to $86 million for ‘administration’.

Those with a belief in the general competence of government and academics might assume that there are some big questions reef scientists have prioritized and are in the process of answering through their reef research. But. It is perhaps more a case of individual researchers confirming the end is nigh in accordance with the consensus, while denying Nemo, his corals and the crystal-clear blue waters that is the reality at 319 percent of this deep nature … that is for those who still put their heads under the water without drowning from a ladder while entangled in a fishing net.

The Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) passed a resolution at its conference on the weekend to establish an ‘Office of Science Quality Assurance’ to check the science that is being used for policy decisions — with the push for the creation of this office coming from those now very concerned about yet more regulation that could mean the end of the sugar industry as a proposed solution to saving the reef from ruin.

In bureaucratic speak such an ‘office’ could mean almost anything, but usually an ‘office’ is just a branch of a government department. Somewhat like a polp within a corallite that is anchored to the colony for better or worst as sea levels fall.

This ‘Office of Science Quality Assurance’ may pride itself on its independent advice.  For example, Finance and Treasury sometimes give independent advice which may conflict with what the Cabinet and the Government wants to do.  Such advice is usually ignored.  This is the reason there are Cabinet-in-Confidence laws: to prevent publication of such internal discussions and possibly differing views. 

There have already been commissions set up by government specifically to investigate corruption within institutions and organisations — even universities that undertake reef research in Queensland.

In facts claims of the need for quality assurance, could be a euphemism for ‘the scientists are taking the money and just making-stuff-up’.

Presently each Australian state has an anti-corruption commission. In Queensland there is the Crime and Corruption Commission (QCCC). The core function of this office is to investigate such allegations.

Indeed this branch of the Queensland government — with the grand title ‘Commission’—has far reaching powers to compel testimony and examine evidence. The QCCC actually receives thousands of complaints each year concerning misconduct by politicians, government officers even scientists — but finds time to investigate less than 5 percent of what is lodged by the tax-payers who funds this office/commission, as well as all the reef research.

The other 95 percent of the complaints lodged annually at the QCCC are referred straight back to the organisation against which the complaint has been lodged!

So, if you as a citizen of Queensland lodge a complaint against the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, for example, chances are that you will have your complaint investigated by — the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

I know of a complaint of corrupt conduct lodged against a Queensland university (not James Cook University) by a former staff member in about 2016 that was immediately referred back to that same Queensland university. Despite all the evidence meticulously complied by the well-qualified former staff member concerning their misconduct, that university’s management determined that it simply did not have a case to answer.

Concerned that his detailed allegations had ended-up back with her university management that wouldn’t let him back on the ladder, the former staff member made a ‘Right to Information Request’ to the QCCC. He wanted to know how often this was the course of action, and how effective such an approach might be — essentially asking the vixens to inspect the chickens, dead and alive.

The QCCC responded that there was no relevant documentation at all. To be clear the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission has never undertaken an assessment of the effectiveness of their complaints referral process. Yet this is where 95 percent. of the complaints from Queensland citizens reside.

This same commission, set up by government to provide some oversight of government, including government science at universities, has an annual budget of more than $60 million.

The Royal Commission into misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services found these non-government organisations also had oversight committees, and the committees were often aware of serious misconduct and possible criminal behaviour impacting on customers. Yet they mostly failed to do anything about it: they failed to properly self regulate.

Previously, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Australia uncovered that senior church officials were aware of sometimes hundreds of individual cases of abuse, yet their response though internal investigation was denial extending over the decades as victims suicided.

So, why would the LNP — currently the opposition government in Queensland — think that an ‘Office of Science Quality Assurance’ within a government department or other, will be able to make a difference to research research – or the plight of sugarcane growers who happen to farm next to the Great Barrier Reef?

Investigation into the veracity and quality of Great Barrier Reef scientific findings, is going to be infinitely more difficult than an investigation into a transaction between the Commonwealth Bank and yet another customer looking for some help with their superannuation.

Research institutions across Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the ARC Centre for Excellence and the Australian Institute of Marine Science are now as conformist and corporatist as banks — while almost totally dependent on government funding but under no obligation to archive their data.

The idea that these government-institutions run by bureaucrats (each on a ladder) will do anything except ensure such an ‘Office of Science Quality Assurance’ endorses the research that they manage, while squashing dissent, is so naive as to be dangerous.

The term Fourth Estate is sometimes used with reference to the mainstream media, suggesting they are as important as the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial for the correct functioning of a democracy. But we know they are as wedded to the idea the Great Barrier Reef is ruin, as Barrack Obama who, also, has never visited it.

There is a need for a revolution: for individuals within governments to become accountable again, for individual scientists to interest themselves in matters of truth, and for individual journalists to take an interest in their evidence.

Instead we increasingly persist in a society where legitimacy resides only with those embedded in such institutions that are increasingly conformist and corporatist — intent on limiting the potential of the individual particularly the individual who dissents. Through constant negotiations — mostly behind closed doors — the special interests of reef research charities and renewable energy advocates, alike, are growing.

Regulation and oversight of government by government does not work anymore — if it ever did.

The best response to the current corruption so obviously now embedded in Great Barrier Reef research would be for the LNP to pass a motion to severely restrict tax payer funding to those so animated by the prospect of reef ruin.

This could potentially limit the waste, and deceit — and who really would miss them? Only politicians who must save things, and journalists too lazy to find real stories — and to check if there really is coral beyond that mud flat to the immediate south of Bowen.

The corporatist culture that increasingly rules Queensland means an ‘Office of Science Quality Assurance’ within any branch of this state government, as proposed by the LNP on the weekend, will only inevitably end-up another brick in the wall against creativity, innovation and independent thought … all so important for the progress of science.

Indeed, all our science is primitive and childlike when measured against the reality of the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef — that has existed for 10,000 years despite floods, droughts and climate change.

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The feature image is by The National Archives UK – Animal Farm artwork, No restrictions.