Oral history of human use and experience of crown of thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

[Extract] This oral history study was commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority "to determine what evidence there is for the occurrence of previous aggregations of crown of thorns starfish". This initiative followed a Crown Of Thorns Starfish Advisory Committee recommendation in January 1985 to conduct "a study of oral history of human use and of experience of the Great Barrier Reef", after a pilot study in oral history was executed at James Cook University of North Queensland for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (Burns, 1982). The Authority recommended to focus this study on extractive industries on the Great Barrier Reef prior to 1960 by recording operators, divers and others involved in these industries (trochus, beche-de-mer, pearling, trawling). The study is seen as a contribution to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's general interest in the relationship between man and the reef, and is located within the framework of a doctoral dissertation on the development and social relations of the pearl-shell, trochus and beche-de-mer industries on the Great Barrier Reef. These materials represent the fieldwork notes towards a dissertation,