[Coral-List] Great Barrier Reef pioneers

[Hans]

Fascinating to read Thomas Goreau's account of Arthur C Clarke’s and Fritz Goreau’s activities in the Great Barrier Reef in 1950/51. When I told my wife she said, ‘what about Professor Dakin?’, whom she learned about while at Sydney University from the late 1940s. 

I quote from the blurb on one of his books (http://classicdivebooks.customer.netspace.net.au/oeclassics-gbr.html):

GREAT BARRIER REEF  
And Some Mention of Other Australian Coral Reefs. 
William J. Dakin 
Australian National Publicity Association, Melbourne 1950. 
Hardcover, dust jacket, 134 pages, mono prints, index. 
One of the true classic books on the natural sciences by the father of marine biology. It is also interesting to read of the many islands that were, in the days of Dakin, free of tourists and the ghastly resorts that go with them. Here is Heron, and Hayman, and Lindeman and Dunk islands at their best.

Etc

Incidentally, Professor Dakin’s closest assistant and colleague, Dr Isobel Bennett, who became a formidable marine scientist in her own right, died in January. She was 98. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/13/2137327.htm).

Hans Hoegh-Guldberg

Economic Strategies Pty Ltd
Applied ecological and cultural economics
Web: http://economicstrategies.wordpress.com/
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Isobel & Hans Hoegh-Guldberg
Isobel direct: isobelhg at bigpond.com