The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change by Iain McCalman Read Free Book Online

island inhabitant and nature lover, Susi Kirk, an inheritor of the mantle of Ted Banfield if ever there was one. At Lockhart River we were treated with extraordinary generosity: Paul Piva loaned us one of his four-wheel-drive vehicles and refused to take payment, while Wayne Butcher, the energetic mayor and community leader, provided us with a boat and his scarce gas supply, and then gave his Uutaalnganu-descended staff time off from work to talk with us about their ancestor Anco and the days when their community still lived in their Sandbeach country near Night Island.
    An early visit to Rivendell, the home of coral scientists John “Charlie” Veron and Mary Stafford-Smith, introduced me to Charlie’s incredible life and work; and he later also entrusted me with a moving private memoir written for his children. This began a relationship that has given vital shape and purpose to my book, though he is not to blame for my mistakes. The Great Barrier Reef and our planet owe these two public-spirited scientists an incalculable debt.
    If one is lucky universities can provide supportive and inspirational environments of a different kind. Friendships and informal conversations with colleagues at Sydney and other universities have been more sustaining than these scholars can know. Here I would particularly like to thank Shane White, Mike McDonnell, David Schlosberg, Alison Bashford, Mark McKenna, Jodi Frawley, Julia Horne, Duncan Ivison, Kirsten McKenzie, Jude Philp, Leah Lui-Chivezhe, Michael Davis, Clare Corbould, Ann Curthoys, John Docker, Barbara Caine, Leigh Boucher, Nicholas Thomas, Jim Chandler, John Barrell, Harriet Guest, Jon Mee, Libby Robin, and my special fount of science knowledge, Lachlan McCalman.
    The actual funding to enable research for this book and its associated digital productions came through the generosity of the Australian Research Council, whose Linkage grant also brought me into collaboration with Michael Westaway of the Queensland Museum and with my old friends Michael Crayford and Nigel Erskine of the Australian National Maritime Museum. Crucially it also cemented a collaborative partnership with John Mullen, director of Silentworld Foundation, and his wife, Jackie, which has ripened into a warm friendship. John’s knowledge of and passion for early Australian maritime history, as well as for archaeological diving in sometimes perilous circumstances, and for collecting, preserving, and displaying vital objects of Australian heritage stands as a salutary example to historical and museum professionals everywhere.
    As usual I have depended on the generosity and expertise of librarians and archivists for my intellectual infrastructure of manuscripts and illustrations. I would like to thank the Fisher Library, University of Sydney; the National Library of Australia; the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales; the Australian Museum, Sydney; the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; the Royal Historical Society of Queensland; the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland; the Fryer Library, University of Queensland; the James Cook University Library; the Griffith University Library; the Australian National Maritime Museum; the Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; the Australian Marine Conservation Society; the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland; and the Library of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville.
    Finally I would like to acknowledge my intellectual debts to those historians on whose work I have depended. We all stand on the shoulders of our predecessors and none more so than me. The late James and Margarita Bowen are the great pioneers of Barrier Reef history, and I have followed in their wake. Bill Gammage’s extraordinary new book The Biggest Estate on Earth taught me to understand Indigenous ecologies in wholly new ways. Reading Stephanie Anderson’s wonderful translation and study of the life of