The matter of damage to the Great Barrier Reef by human activity has
been much in the news lately. Current public perception is that the reef
is being destroyed by one or all of land runoff, water turbidity, wonky
holes, chemical pollution, crown-of thorns starfish outbreaks, tourist
pressure, sea-level change and climate change, to name a few.
Against this background, the independent assessment by the Productivity
Commission that "there is no conclusive evidence yet of water quality
decline within the GBR lagoon or of any resulting damage to
ecosystems" is particularly important, despite the mysterious
"yet".
The Commission's conclusion agrees with studies completed in the 1990s
by sedimentologists at James Cook University, and with more recent
comprehensive environmental investigations in the Cairns' region. This
research shows that muddy water is a normal natural phenomenon in all
inshore reef waters, that inshore reefs thrive in such conditions, and
that abundant space is available for the deposition of sediment before it
will impact the main reef tract. At current rates of production, a direct
sediment impact on the reef is going to take more than 100,000 years to
occur, which is a little beyond the usual electoral cycle.
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The Productivity Commission added the caveat that there was
circumstantial evidence of water quality decline, but seem to have failed
to detail what this evidence is. In any case, there is also abundant
evidence of both direct and circumstantial nature that water quality is
unchanged, and that the GBR is in excellent shape, as was indeed concluded
in a recent summary of the health of the world's coral reefs by noted reef
expert Dr Clive Wilkinson.
In its discussion of future options, the Commission also repeatedly
uses the "precautionary principle", not least because the GBR is
of World Heritage status. In reality, the precautionary principle is just
a long name for common sense.
Badging common sense with such a pompous name has in the past been an
effective ploy used by those whose main aim was to disrupt or stop change
of any type. Because, for any change, be it planned or unplanned, the
human mind is capable of imagining a multitude of possible risks.
Common sense applied to any situation says that if you perceive your
action is likely to cause a bad result, then you don't undertake the
action. For goodness sake, we teach this to children from the day they can
toddle: if there's a car coming along the road, then don't cross it.
Consider two other examples. The first is regarding a possible threat
to the GBR. It is entirely possible that the GBR will be impacted some
time next year (not tomorrow, for if that were to be the case, the object
would already have been sighted) by a large meteorite which will destroy
it. The precautionary principle says that because we can imagine this
possibility, we are duty bound to take steps to protect the GBR from
impact. I look forward to hearing what Premier Beattie has in mind in
response to this threat.
Another example may be closer to readers' own lives and experience. I
live in Townsville. After giving a talk in Brisbane last Friday at the
Rural Press Club, entitled "The Great Barrier Reef is Doing Just
Fine, Thank You", I had to decide whether to travel home that night.
I knew, as we all know every time we travel, that there was a possibility
that the plane I was plannning to return on might crash. The precautionary
principle would say that I should have stayed (safe) in Brisbane. Where do
you think I am writing this article from?
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You see, sensibly managing threats to the environment is not about
combatting every single threat that can be dreamed up in the vivid, and
let it be said immensely creative, imaginations of environmentally
concerned citizens. Rather, it is about judging the balance of risk on a
wide scale of possible misadventures.
On such a scale, REGIONAL threats to the GBR from water turbidity,
sediment runoff, urban, tourist or agrichemical pollution, crown of thorns
outbreaks, wonky holes and meteorite impacts are far field possibilities
akin to the risks of flying or less. On the other hand, to ignore climate
and sea-level change as long-term factors to be considered as part of reef
management would be the same as ignoring the car coming down the road.
Importantly, climate and sea-level change are currently mostly natural
phenomena, as is water quality. It is therefore quite wrong, not to
mention unfair, to selectively blame the effects of changes in any of
these factors on Queensland farmers and graziers, as some have done.