Final report on the results of COTSAC management related research : December 1985 to June 1989

Abstract

Management-related studies were primarily intended to investigate the role of human activities in outbreaks and to provide options for controlling them should they be found to be triggered or exacerbated by human activity. "Conclusive evidence of major populations prior to major human impact or involvement with the Great Barrier Reef would alleviate concern that they represent a totally new, man-induced alteration to the ecological dynamics of the system" (COTSAC, 1985). To this end, oral history studies were intended to research evidence of outbreaks on an historic timescale (200 years) while examination of reefal sediments for COTS skeletal elements was to find evidence of outbreaks on a geologic timescale (15,000 years).