Walter Starck: It’s the science, not the reef, that is being polluted

Posted Monday, 8 September 2014

In the fable about the boy who cried wolf the villagers quickly decided the boy was lying and ceased to respond to his alarms. It seems modern day journalists must be much more gullible than those ancient villagers. Every year for almost a half­century the news media have breathlessly reported alarmist claims of imminent threats to the existence of the Great Barrier Reef. Despite the fact that all have proved to be fictitious, trivial or short lived fluctuation of nature, the phony alarms never seem to lose credibility with news reporters or even provoke any investigation.

The latest such instance has involved uncritical propagation of alarmist claims regarding the threat from some additional dredging of an existing dredged shipping channel in connection with expansion of the coal loading terminal at Abbott Point in central Queensland. (See: BATTLE FOR THE REEF, reported by Marian Wilkinson and presented by Kerry O’Brien, broadcast on ABC 4 Corners Monday 18 August 2014) Only a modicum of investigation would reveal that all of the ports along the Queensland coast have been dredged and require periodic re­dredging to maintain their entrance channels. The GBR itself is many km offshore and no detriment to the reef attributable to coastal dredging has ever been documented. A scattering of low diversity inshore reefs does occur in the region but these are restricted to rocky outcrops where wave action prevents sediment build­up and these reefs are comprised of a limited range of silt tolerant coral species.