Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Why Craig Kelly Resigned on Tuesday

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Craig Kelly has a huge following on Facebook. His daily posts were ‘liked’ and ‘shared’ by thousands, until he was blocked – disallowed, censored. His page is still there. He just can’t post anything. The banner at the top of his page says:

Today’s truth is frequently tomorrow’s error. There is nothing absolute about the truth … if the truth is to emerge and in the long run triumph, the process of free debate – the untrammelled clash of opinion – must go on.

Craig is quoting Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies.

Last Tuesday, on 23rd February 2021, he handed his letter of resignation to the current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. That was in the Great Hall of the Australian Parliament in front of the joint party room: 110 Senators and Members of the House of Representatives belonging to the Liberal and National Parties.

He has been a member of Parliament for over a decade, and he does make close friends. In making the speech that he did at 11.20 am that morning/Tuesday morning, Craig knew he would be losing some of his closest friends, and perhaps forever.

Craig phoned me yesterday to chat about it – while he packed up to leave Canberra after a tumultuous week. He was heading home: back to Sydney where he lives. But there is no refuge anywhere for Craig. Just two weeks ago, during a home invasion, someone flew the Islamic flag from his bedroom window and photographed it there while accusing him of being a supporter of the caliphate. Also recently, he was accused in the Sydney Morning Herald of being anti-Semitic because he described Dr Zev Zelenko as having a long Jewish beard. That is a fair description of the physical appearance of the American doctor who has recommended the drugs Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and Azithromycin as a treatment for Covid. Craig is actually a fan of Zev’s – on the public record as describing Zev as a true hero, and someone from whom he (Craig Kelly) draws strength, courage and inspiration.

Craig likes people, and people of all ethnicities. He grew up in the 1970s, with a father who travelled the world buying wholesale for his successful furniture business in south western Sydney. Craig got to go on some of these overseas adventures: down the back streets of far-flung places from Hong Kong to Istanbul, where his father would seek out, not only the best business deal, but also the best of the local foods – especially the sweets.

Like his father, Craig cares about small business and also people, and their capacity to make their own decisions about how they furnish their home, what they choose to eat, and what medications they choose to take or reject. In his letter of resignation given to the Australian Prime Minister on Tuesday Craig wrote:

I acknowledge that some of my conduct over recent months has not helped … has made it difficult for you and the government. However, at all times I have acted upon my conscious and my beliefs – not political expediency.

My goal has only been to save lives and ensure that my constituents and all Australians, were not denied access to medical treatments if their doctors believe those treatments could save their life.

Craig was censored by Facebook for posting a quote from Professor Tom Borody who advocates Ivermectin, when combined with Doxycycline and Zinc, as an early treatment for Covid. Professor Borody is another of Craig’s heroes: recognized worldwide for his innovative clinical work and research into complex gastrointestinal disorders and infective disorders.

Another professor, probably Australia’s most senior immunologist, Robert Clancy, has also suggested there are alternatives to vaccination for the treatment of Covid. In a recent interview on ABC radio Professor Clancy made mention of a recent scientific review that summarises 43 different studies on Hydroxychloroquine, concluding that:

HCQ is consistently effective against COVID-19 when provided early in the outpatient setting, it is overall effective against COVID-19, it has not produced worsening of disease and it is safe.

So, why is Facebook banning Craig and why did the Australian Prime Minister’s Office ask that Craig Kelly remove – that he delete – 20 previous Facebook posts?

It was reported by The Guardian newspaper that up to 70 posts had disappeared from Craig’s Facebook page – the inference being that he/Craig had deliberately deleted them.

Craig has told me that all his Facebook posts are still there, and he has no intention of removing any of them. Craig tells me that he stands by everything that he has written on Facebook as accurate and correct. He acknowledges that others may disagree, and that he is keen to discuss why, especially with reference to clinical trials and published scientific papers.

Craig acknowledges that he is neither a scientist nor a doctor – but rather a politician with a keen interest in these issues who will always make-up his own mind based on reading and consulting widely. I know from personal experience that Craig will spend hours discussing detail and seemingly anomalous results always in search of the truth. Craig and I both enjoy the technical, and we both like puzzle solving.

My expertise, and most recent peer-reviewed published papers, are in climate science. Craig has been known to text me at midnight, asking for clarification about some detail pertaining to how air temperatures are measured and/or the historical temperature record for Australia remodelled/homogenised by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Craig attempted to raise the issue of the world’s longest heat wave record in the Australian parliament a couple of years ago. Specifically, Craig was attempting to draw attention to how the historical observations/temperature measurements have been changed, and how the values as originally recorded at Marble Bar between 31 October 1923 and 7 April 1924 have been adjusted down.

When the Australian Bureau of Meteorology cools the past – as it does with most of the 112 temperature series used to construct the official statistics – current temperatures appear hotter. The remodelling of Marble Bar has, to quote Craig, also robbed Australia of the world’s longest heatwave record. This now goes to Death Valley in California.

Whether it is climate science or medical science, Craig revels in the detail. It is his current inability to communicate this detail, or to defend himself against accusations that he is promoting unproven treatments for Covid, that left him with no choice but to resign from the government on Tuesday.

He made up his mind last weekend. He finished drafting his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister Monday night. He also wrote a letter that same night to the Speaker, informing him of his resignation and asking for a reallocation of seating in the chamber and that he be given indulgence to address the house/the parliament.

Last Tuesday morning was really difficult for Craig.

The first thing the Prime Minister asked Craig when he gave him his letter of resignation was, ‘Why didn’t you tell me first’.

Had Craig told Scott Morrison of his intension to resign first, Craig believes that the Prime Minister would have denied him the opportunity to address his colleagues that morning in the joint Party room. There was nothing more important to Craig, than what he calls ‘eyeballing’ his colleagues, and explaining his decision: a most difficult decision – to leave the team, the government – his government.

Looking people in the eye, and having a firm handshake are both characteristics of Craig Kelly.

They are traits I so remember of my father, who like Craig’s father, travelled the world through the 1970s – but as an agricultural scientist working on international aid projects. Dad would often take me with him, and I also got to eat the most delicious foods. Dad liked his sweets, but also the hottest chilli sauces in the back streets of Jakarta.

I never got to meet Craig’s father, but I did go to his funeral, out of respect for Craig.

Craig Kelly is a good friend of mine, and his particular perspective on alternative treatments for Covid are worthy of scrutiny. And like Craig, I am of the opinion that the Covid vaccines now being rolled out across Australia may not be the best choice for everyone. More than anything else, just like the flu vaccines, it should be up to the individual whether they choose to be vaccinated – or not.

Update 31 May 2021
David Archibald just published this data on Ivermectin and ‘whole of country trials’ that backs up what Craig has been asking for … choice in terms of what we can use to prevent and/or treat Covid, there should be more options than just vaccine:
https://wentworthreport.com/ivermectin-whole-of-country-trials-in-real-time/

Writing in the Mountain Home magazine, Michael Capuzzo has put together a compelling narrative in support of Ivermectin that is also damning of mainstream medicine and their ability to act in the best interests of the individual when it comes to the oh-so political Covid-19: https://www.mountainhomemag.com/2021/05/01/356270/the-drug-that-cracked-covid

photograph
The feature image shows Craig Kelly in the Australian National Archive checking actual historical temperature records, and comparing them with values currently listed by the Bureau.

Priorities, Life is a Journey – And Happy Birthday to My Daughter

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I remember picking my daughter up from school, years ago. It was her first year, so she was about six years old. The last class for the day had been art, and the teacher had asked they paint the solar system. Most of the children had something to show their mothers, that included moons and planets in various shades and shapes painted onto a white background. My daughter, meanwhile, had spent the entire art class painting a black background. Only after that, had she intended to paint the Sun, and after that the planets. At the end of that school day, most of her classmates had finished paintings. The teacher was clearly frustrated my daughter only had a black background to show me.

In the scheme of things did it matter that my daughter hadn’t finished her picture on time? I thought it wonderful that she had thought through what was needed to create the best picture, rather than concern herself with being finished on time.

There is always a lot of pressure for us to have something to show, something completed. But how much more important can it be, getting the process/the method correct especially when it comes to art, and also science and medicine.

I only have the one daughter, and she has always been concerned with the fundamentals – and getting them right.

While I have always been most interested in the environment and how to best care for it, she has always been more concerned about people.

At University she got herself a scholarship for a study tour to Kenya, and from that she wrote a paper explaining the taboo issue that is preventing so many girls from finishing school:

Investment in projects that directly support women and girls is essential to reducing poverty. In 2012, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that ‘the greatest return comes from investing in girls and women. When they are educated, they drive development in their families, communities and nations.’

A single year of primary education correlates with at least a 10-per-cent increase in a woman’s wages later in life, with the returns on a year of secondary education estimated to be double that. Moreover, educating girls remains the single best policy for reducing fertility.

However, in Sub-Saharan Africa only 57 per cent of all girls attend primary schools, with only 17 per cent enrolled at a secondary level. A UNESCO study has found that about 150 million children currently enrolled in primary schools globally will drop out before they finish. At least 100 million of those will be girls.

One reason young girls are not attending school is commonly overlooked: gender taboos and menstruation. Ngeru, for instance, is a 14-year-old girl from Kenya. During her period, she has no access to sanitary pads. Instead, Ngeru will improvise with cloth, or bark tree lining, or mattress stuffing.

Needless to say, these DIY techniques are ineffective and humiliating. Health risks abound, including infections and genital sores. She will likely end up with blood on her school uniform or clothing, but attitudes to menstruation mean that Ngeru would rather drop out than confront the bullying of peers and male teachers alike. She enjoys studying mathematics, but her education is wholly subject to her cycle.

A study of the attitudes of Kenyan school-aged girls to menstrual health found that ‘one of the most effective ways to deal with menstruation is to go home’.

There are now enough masks for everyone in Australia it seems. But I wonder when there will be enough sanitary pads for young girls needing to complete school, in Africa?

In the article Caroline did write:

Moreover, educating girls remains the single best policy for reducing fertility.

I’m also for smaller families, including so there is less pressure on the natural environment. Africa’s wildlife and wild places are under so much pressure from so many people. There was hope for tourism, as an economic reason to protect all the animals. But who into the foreseeable future will be visiting Africa to see the elephants?

Caroline has seen the elephants, and so much of Africa. She perhaps holds the record for fastest ascent and descent of Mount Kenya. So, she can get things done quickly, when there is a real need.

Lindsay, with Caroline following, as they climbed Mt Kenya in 2018.

It was back in July 2018 – by then Caroline had moved to Kenya, she was living and working in Nairobi – she told me she would be climbing Mt Kenya. I thought that would take about 5 days, there is the issue of altitude sickness, and normally one would be accompanied by a porter and a local guide.

But, no, the ever-intrepid Caroline told me she only had the weekend, she had to be at work on Friday, and back by Monday. She told me she was planning to run-up on Saturday, and down on Sunday with her girlfriend, Lindsay.

I grumbled to myself all that weekend, wondering what the chances might be, of finding any remains, should she be eaten by a Lion, after being trampled by a buffalo. Then I got the phone call, on Monday, she was back in Nairobi, sending photographs and videos including of them summitting. I felt inspired and relieved. And her friend Lindsay wrote about the adventure on her blog, as a three part series.

Caroline, she has a heart of gold. She doesn’t settle for less, and she sometimes takes her time. She never gives up, and she is fearless. She was born 32 years ago today.

Yes. It is her birthday!

I wish her every happiness. And I’m so grateful for all the love she bestows on me, and also her Grandma.

I’m so proud of all that she has achieved this last year. May the next year be everything she has worked towards, and more, even if it means that she will be leaving Australia for yet another overseas adventure.

Happy Birthday!

Caroline in the dark, but not lost as she climbs Mount Kenya those few years ago.

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Photo credits all to Lindsay. Thank you.

Fly-Past Coral Surveys, And

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This morning, Peter Ridd’s legal team will be asking the High Court to hear his appeal against his sacking by James Cook University.

The High Court does not agree to hear most cases. They consider cases that have a wider legal implication. His legal team continue to focus on the academic/intellectual freedom clauses in most university enterprise agreements and on this basis, they are hopefully the High Court will see the case as important. I continue to wish there was more interest in the actual science.

Peter Ridd was a professor at James Cook University for more than two decades. He was fired in 2017 for saying that because of systemic problems with quality assurance, work from the university’s Coral Reef Studies centre, at the time headed by Terry Hughes, was untrustworthy. Peter’s issues were many and varied.

My issues relate specifically to the aerial surveys of coral bleaching by Terry Hughes from which it has been concluded that the Great Barrier Reef is half dead.

There has been very little scrutiny of the methodology underpinning these aerial surveys. It is actually impossible to make any meaningful assessment of coral reef health from more than 120 metres above a coral reef – which is the altitude from which Professor Hughes has been conducting his flyovers. It is easy enough to demonstrate this by putting a drone up over different habitat at the same, and different, coral reefs. I’ve also been getting in and under the water to assess the corals close-up.

This is all explained in a new ‘coral reef’ page at my website, from which you can click-on and see some of the transects we ran at the reefs we visited. It is still in a work in progress: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/coralreefs/ .

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The feature image is my buddy swimming over a garden of massive Porites, Myrmidon Reef, December 1, 2020.

Naming a First Old Porites, Craig

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Knowing the truth has always been a challenge requiring an amount of discipline. And it is getting that much harder in this age of disinformation. How can we distinguish reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda?

Science used to be so useful for this. But many government-funded reef research programs now amass data to prove a bad impact from global warming, and other things. There is not much hypothesis testing as such – not even about how coral growth rates are affected by increasing sea temperatures.

Coral reefs are amongst the most diverse, species-rich and spectacularly beautiful ecosystems on Earth. The largest and best known of these is the Great Barrier Reef and there was once a program of coring, with an annual average growth rate reported for the entire Great Barrier Reef. In the beginning it was hypothesized that as temperatures increased coral growth rates would increase too, which is a good thing – right?

From Chapter 1 of Climate Change: The Facts 2017, the previous book in the series I’m editing.

In the beginning the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) sampled the really old large Porites. These are the bolder corals with distinct annual bands – variations in the density and length of these annual bands are an indication of changing growth rates.

Then, after 1990, they started mixing up the young (less than 15 years old) with the old (more than 100 years old) samples, which generated some confusing results. A study published in Marine Geology (volume 346) that used only data from the large old corals showed an increase in calcification rates (coral growth rates) over the last 100 years, rather than a sudden drop off after 1990.

Then AIMS just stopped coring the really old Porites and stopped calculating an annual average growth rate. It is now 16 years since AIMS published an average coral growth rate for the Great Barrier Reef. This makes it that much harder to know if the Great Barrier Reef really is dying – or if this is just scare mongering to generate research funding.

I think we should start an inventory of the oldest and largest Porites, to acknowledge and celebrate them. The largest massive bolder coral that I have measured so far is from Pixie Reef, just to the north east of Cairns.

Does anyone want to guess how high and wide this very large old Porites coral colony is? These photographs were taken on 25th November 2020.

I was wondering how we might distinguish the individual coral colonies: what we might call it? Then I remembered how it all began with naming cyclones:

It started in 1887 when Queensland’s chief weather man Clement Wragge began naming tropical cyclones after the Greek alphabet, fabulous beasts, and politicians who annoyed him.

After Wragge retired in 1908, the naming of cyclones and storms occurred much less frequently, with only a handful of countries informally naming cyclones. It was almost 60 years later that the Bureau formalised the practice, with Western Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Bessie being the first Australian cyclone to be officially named on January 6, 1964.

Other countries quickly began using female names to identify the storms and cyclones that affected them.”

I was wondering what we might call this massive Porites amongst the Pixies, and then I received a phone call from my dear friend Craig Kelly MP.

Following in the early tradition of Clement Wragge for cyclones, I though we might name this Porites after Craig – a truth seeker and for many an annoying politician.

These close-up photographs of Porites Craig taken at the same time as the wide-angle images, show that the corallite wall is still intact and some have their tentacles extended. So, we can conclude Porites Craig was quite healthy on 25th November 2020. If AIMS cored this coral we could know the true climate history of this place back perhaps 500 years.

Ends.

Tarenorerer, Another Warrior

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I went to my favourite local bookshop last week (River Read) looking to be entertained and distracted. I settled on an historical romance. I chose ‘The Burning Island’ by Jock Serong, published just last September.

After reading the back cover and flicking through, I knew I was buying into a story that begins in Sydney about 200 years ago with the main character a tall, cynical spinster who sets off on an adventure. I also noted that it was about a shipwreck, specifically the Britomart – wrecked off the coast of Tasmania in 1839 under suspicious circumstances. I had recently visited a coral reef called Britomart.

Eliza Grayling is conflicted and a paradox – and thus so human. Her relationship with her father is fraught, and through the story she proves a very poor judge of character in many ways.

But then again how fully can we know another person. And how can we know when we are being betrayed or misled – whether by a person, a group, an institution or the zeitgeist of our civilization?

If you never trust, and you never submit, then you can never be betrayed – or at least never be betrayed again. But what can you build? There is the African proverb if you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far – go together.

In Serong’s story/The Burning Island, Tarenorerer is an Aboriginal woman of about the same age as Eliza Grayling, who takes Eliza prisoner and then eventually befriends her.

According to Aboriginal folklore Tarenorerer was a terrorist and a freedom fighter who would never give up, or give in.

In 1828 she assembled warbands of both men and women and trained them to use muskets against white settlers and to kill their livestock.

In reading the story of Tarenorerer I am reminded that resistance fighters almost inevitably lose the war, even if they have a few victories in battle along the way. But there will always be such warriors who exist beyond culture and colour – they are an archetype representing a specific set of universal, recognizable human behaviours, and they emerge when there is profound injustice.

I’m writing this on 26th January, a day variously referred to here in Australia as ‘Invasion Day’ or ‘Australia Day’. My colleague at the IPA, John Roskam, has just released a video, with former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, about the importance of Australian values and that they are under attack. I don’t share all the same values as these two conservative men, but I share many of the same values. Most importantly they encourage the pursuit of the truth and its continual testing, always and only against the evidence.

We can, and should, argue about whether our national day be celebrated on 26 January, or 3rd December – the day of the Eureka Stockade. Better still, let’s make it a day in the future: the day the Murray River’s estuary is restored by blasting the Mundo barrage/sea dyke, or the day Peter Ridd gets his job back at James Cook University, or the day the Australian Bureau of Meteorology restores 3rd January 1909 as the hottest day ever recorded in Australia.

But these things will never be achieved unless we get together under a common banner with some agreed and shared values, against the hegemony.

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The Feature image is by Robert Hawker Dowling – Robert Dowling | Group of Natives of Tasmania, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12635841

Measuring Old Corals & Coral Reefs (Part 2)

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Late last year, I went on an expedition in search of a type of very old coral known as massive Porites. Stuart, Shaun and I dived five very different coral reefs between Cairns and Townsville.

The first was an inshore fringing coral reef to the leeward side of High Island. High Island is close to the Australian mainland, and not far from the Russell and Mulgrave rivers that drain a catchment with sugarcane farms. More than almost any other coral reef along the Queensland coast, this inshore reef would likely show impacts from agriculture – if there are any.

High Island with its fringing coral reef.

This coral reef has a very broad and long reef crest. On the afternoon of 28th September, when we visited, this habitat was covered in perhaps one metre of water. Along the seaward edge of this fringing coral reef, the crest gives way to the reef slope where we found so many massive Porites – so many of the old corals that we were searching for.

The water was quite turbid, which is common at these inshore reefs depending on the prevailing wind.

On the reef slope, many of the Porites (these massive bolder corals), were more than 2 metres in height and width, and a golden colour. There were lots of little fish. I found a peg that perhaps marked a Porites that been cored more than 17 years ago. The Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) once cored corals at this reef.

Once upon a time, the scientists drilled into the corals and extracted a core from which they created a slither. Then, under x-ray, they counted the annual bands with the varying lengths and thicknesses of each band being a measure of annual growth rates. Yes, these massive bolder corals have annual growth rings – like tree rings.

Then we found another peg, perhaps marking another of the corals that used to be cored. But our job was not to count the pegs, rather to measure the height and width of the Porites – of the old corals.

The massive Porites at the beginning of the reef slope were of a uniform height. This is because their vertical growth is constrained by sea level. The growth rates of coral colonies slows as they come within 2- 3 metres of the surface. So, the annual growth bands of these Porites, at this reef, may not be a good indicator of climate change, because they are so constrained by sea level.

Our expedition was in searching for Porites, but not any Porites: Porites suitable for coring to determine the effect of climate change on coral growth rates.

The Porites are growing to a uniform height, just below the sea level.

At any given location, the sea level changes with the tides. Sea level, the tides, can vary by 3 metres in one day at this reef. And the very lowest tide in the 18.6-year lunar (moon) declination cycle may cause a tide that is a foot (30cm) lower than the lowest tide in an average year. (There is more about this in our new book ‘Climate Change: The Facts 2020’, see page 267, and there is also a Factsheet about tides falling on corresponding El Nino events at the book’s dedicated webpage, see figure 4 at the second link.)

The tides, and so much else that happens at coral reefs, has a lunar/moon influence – both the good and the bad. Coral spawning happens exactly 5 days after a full moon, and the worst coral bleaching events, which were in 1998 and then again in 2016, correspond exactly with the lunar (moon) declination cycle of 18.6 years. If the massive Porites at the coral reef fringing High Island were not constrained by sea level, they would be more dome shaped. But as they grow closer to the surface, their tops are bleached on the lowest tides and then die, so they become flat topped.

The decayed top of a massive Porites growing on the slope at this fringing coral reef.

As the reef crest grows seaward and the coral colonies now growing on the slopes are incorporated into it, these massive Porites may eventually grow into a donut-like form referred to as a microatolls. A microatoll has dead coral in the centre and is surrounded by a ring of live coral.

There are so many ‘donuts’ – Porites microatolls with diameters of perhaps two metres – in the aerial photographs from above the reef crest at High Island. These corals may have become incorporated into the reef crest as the coral reef prograded seaward and so may also be two metres in depth, or the coral colonies/the Porites microatolls may be quite flat bottomed, having started life on-top of the existing reef platform and only ever had the opportunity to grow laterally because they have always been constrained by sea-level.

The High Island reef crest from 10 metres altitude.
The High Island reef crest from 120 metres altitude.

From 120 altitude above the reef crest at High Island, and indeed above most reef crests, it mostly all looks rather drab and desolate – except for the donuts. It is from about this altitude that the chief scientist at the ARC Centre for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University has decided that more than 50% of the Great Barrier Reef is bleached. His reports make newspaper headlands around the world, and so most people now believe that the Great Barrier Reef is half dead.

To be clear, Professor Terry Hughes flies over hundreds of reef crests, looks out the plane window, and scores them. If more than 60% of the corals looks dead to him the reef is given a score of 4. (This method, and the technical paper, are referenced at the end of this article.)

Except that at this altitude, at which the plane flies, it is actually impossible to see any individual corals – beyond the large donuts, which are Porites microatolls.

While it is impossible to see the littler corals and the colourful fish at this high altitude – from such a distance – there were so many delicate and pretty corals on this reef crest, and even pretty blue fish as you can see in the transect photographs. (There is a new webpage with the photographic transects and a bit more. It will become the data page for High Island reef eventually, hopefully, incorporating species lists and analysis of coral cover and coral health.)

The chief scientist claims to ground-truthed his scores from the aerial flyovers by laying belt transect that are ten metres in length over some of the reef crest. We laid such transects at the High Island reef crest on 28th November 2020. We also laid transects at 5 metres depth. We are planning to go back and lay transects at 10 metres depth.

Photograph of the first transect at 2 metres from the reef crest at High Island.

Just considering the first 10 metre transect from the reef crest at High Island: at 2 metres along, I can see such a pretty beige Lobophytum pauciforum coral. The tentacles are extended along several of the branches. So, I can conclude this is a healthy coral.

Photograph from the transect at 5 metres, at the High Island reef crest on 28th November 2020.

But what about the coral at 5 metres along this photographic transect? It looks bleached! But perhaps this is actually a soft coral, perhaps Sinularia polydactyla which is a type of coral that never has any zooxanthellae, so it can’t bleach.

Photograph from the transect at 10 metres, taken at the reef crest at High Island on 28th November 2020.

But the last photograph in this transect, at 10 metres: the corals are almost all dead and covered in algae. There are, though, two young nobbly Porites emerging from the destruction that could become microatolls eventually. After a hundred years these two pink nobbly things could grow to a metre in diameter and be donut shaped.

While taking the transect photographs at this reef crest Shaun found and also photographed a blue lionfish, Pterois sp..

A lionfish at the High Island reef crest.

While Shaun took the photographs, Stuart took video of the corals along the tape measure, along the transects. This video transect gives a more continuous and a wider-angle view of the corals along each of the ten metres sections of reef. Considering just the last three of the ten-metre sections of video transect which are from the reef crest, how would you score this reef crest?

Given the great variability in coral cover, and coral health, and the diversity of coral species and just along 10 metres of transect, I find it quite difficult to make such a judgement.

Science is not a truth. It is a way of getting to the truth.

If we use the method applied by the chief scientist then we have to choose from just one of five categories for this reef. According to his method, the result of which are regularly reported across the world, you need to choose one of the following categories:
<1% dead, 1-10% dead, 10-30% dead, 30-60% dead, >60%.

So, what is your decision! Is this reef crest 10-30% dead?

Perhaps it would be easier if you just looked at the reef crest from 120 metres altitude and made a decision based on your impression of the corals from this altitude, as the chief scientist does.

The High Island reef crest from 120 metres altitude.

So, what is your decision? From this altitude could it be concluded that this reef crest is more than >60% dead? Would this be a fair assessment, and would it then be fair to conclude that the entire ecosystem at this fringing coral reef is more than 60% dead?

I actually think that there are major problems with the methodology used by Professor Hughes to decide on the state of our coral reefs. I think it inappropriate to attempt to categorise the state of corals from such a high altitude, from more than 100 metres away. I think that the professor should be getting in, and under, the water.

If there is anything that a high altitude aerial photograph is useful for, beyond finding Porites microattols at reef crests, it is perhaps distinguishing the different habitat types at coral reefs. From high up in the air above High Island it is easy enough to see that the reef crest is quite different from the reef slope.

The reef crest ends at the reef slope which is along the seaward side of the High Island coral reef. This aerial was taken on 28th November, 2020. Our 40 foot boat provides some scale, you can see about half of it in this aerial.

The reef slope is the section that falls alway to the sea floor. The most prolific growth and highest biodiversity at a fringing coral reef is typically down the reef slope. I wonder how far down the Porites and other corals grow at this reef? I wonder how far from the reef crest, down the reef slope before the sea floor?

Massive Porites towards the top of the reef slope at High Island, photographed on 28th November 2020.

Acknowledgements

Stuart Ireland took all the aerial photographs, and filmed the transect video. Shaun Frichette took all the transect photographs. These provide some record of the health of this coral reef fringing High Island for that moment in time, for Saturday 28th November 2020.

Reference
T. P. Hughes, J. T. Kerry, and T. Simpson. Ecology 99(2), 2018.

Data set identification code:
Coral bleaching scores of 931 reefs on the Great Barrier Reef (range: 142oE to 152oE, 9oS to 23oS). Bleaching scores are recorded in a .csv attribute table. The attribute table identifies each reef by a unique reef code (following Great Barrier Reef Marine Park nomenclature), reef name (where available), reef centroid (as longitude and latitude), coral bleaching score as a categorical variable: (0) less than 1% of corals bleached, (1) 1-10%, (2) 10-30%, (3) 30-60%, and (4) more than 60% of corals bleached, and date of aerial surveillance.

Methods: We compiled an attribute table of coral bleaching scores for 1156 whole reefs on the Great Barrier in 2016. The attribute table identifies each reef by a unique identifier number and (where available) reef name, the longitude and latitude of the centroid of each reef, a categorical bleaching score of the bleaching status of each reef, and the date the reef was surveyed from the air.
These data were generated from comprehensive aerial surveys of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Torres Strait (Fig. 1) conducted on ten days between 22nd March 2016 and 17th April 2016 when bleaching was at its zenith, but before significant mortality had set in (confirmed by extensive underwater surveys at 260 sites (104 reefs).

The aerial surveys utilised light aircraft and helicopters, flying at an elevation of approximately 150 m (500 ft). We assessed 1156 individual reefs from the coast to the edge of the continental shelf along 14o of latitude. Using the same protocols as earlier aerial surveys conducted in 1998 and 2002 (Berkelmans et al. 2004), each reef was assigned by visual assessment to one of five categories of bleaching severity: (0) less than 1% of corals bleached, (1) 1-10%, (2) 10-30%, (3) 30-60%, and (4) more than 60% of corals bleached.

Underwater surveys of the coral bleaching were conducted at the same time on 104 reefs, to assess the accuracy of aerial surveys, using five 10 x 1 m belt transects placed on the reef crest at a depth of 2m at each site. Observers identified and counted each coral colonies and recorded a 6-scale categorical bleaching score for each one: (1) no bleaching, (2) pale, (3) 1-50% bleached, (4) 51- 99% bleached, (5) 100% bleached, (6) bleached and recently dead. The amount of bleaching for each location is the sum of categories 2-6, i.e. excluding unbleached colonies.

Other Information

There is a High Island data page, with the transect photographs and I’m hoping to add species lists and more to this page: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/coralreefs/high-island/

Part 1 of this series concerns Pixie Reef, just to the north of Cairns, and can be found here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/2020/11/measuring-old-corals-coral-reefs-part-1/ . Like High Island, Pixie is so close to Cairns but such a different reef perhaps in part because it is not fringing a continental island.

This website is archived each year by the Australian National Library:
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/tep/66941