title: The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
author:  Iain McCalman 
description: Flat-out astonished when he first set eyes on the Great Barrier Reef in 2001, British historian McCalman (Darwins Armada, 2009) quickly became concerned about all that imperils the ongoing vitality of this gigantic maze of coral structures and magnificent marine world, especially global warming. Now his mission is to illuminate the reefs glorious complexity by recounting the stirring, wild, and surprising stories of fraught encounters between islanders and outsiders. He begins with vivid accounts of Captain James Cooks nearly disastrous reef collision in 1770, followed by the 1802 expedition of Matthew Flinders, the true European father of the Reef. Here, too, are beachcombers, artists, a tropical Thoreau, and shipwrecked Barbara Thompson, a nineteenth-century Scotswoman who lived for five years among the Kaurareg people. McCalman also profiles intrepid scientists who advanced our knowledge of reef-building corals and their role in this precious ecosystem, a World Heritage site, from naturalist Joseph Beete Jukes to scandal-evading William Saville-Kent, a pioneer in marine science photography, to todays ardent reef advocate, Charlie Veron. McCalmans passionate history is a call to save this fragile global wonder. --Donna Seaman
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  # The Great Barrier Reef
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  The Great Barrier Reef is located along the coast of Queensland in north-east
  Australia and is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem. Designated a World
  Heritage Area, it has been subject to increasing pressures from tourism,
  fishing, pollution and climate change, and is now protected as a marine park.
  This book provides an original account of the environmental history of the
  Great Barrier Reef, based on extensive archival and oral history research.
  
  
  It documents and explains the main human impacts on the Great Barrier Reef
  since European settlement in the region, focusing particularly on the century
  from 1860 to 1960 which has not previously been fully documented, yet which
  was a period of unprecedented exploitation of the ecosystem and its resources.
  The book describes the main changes in coral reefs, islands and marine
  wildlife that resulted from those impacts.
  
  
  In more recent de