[Coral-List] Arthur C. Clarke and coral reefs
Thomas Goreau
goreau at bestweb.net
Wed Mar 19 11:39:07 EDT 2008
Sir Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age
of 90. While he was world famous as a science fiction writer, the
creator of the concept of the satellite, and a pioneer in proposing
many innovative new technologies, especially in outer space, few
people are now aware of his pioneering role in making diving and
coral reefs known to the public. His book "The Coast of Coral" is the
first book on diving in coral reefs written in English, and describes
his adventures diving along the Great Barrier Reef in 1950, in search
of adventure, and he hoped, treasure.
While the fame of this book led many to regard him as the first diver
on the Great Barrier Reef, Arthur told me personally that when he
first arrived there he met my grandfather, Fritz Goreau, who had
beaten him to it, coming out of the water with my father's home-made
rebreather. Arthur said that he greatly admired my grandfather,
whose photographs of marine life in the Great Barrier Reef, published
in LIFE Magazine in 1950 and 1951, were the first high quality
underwater photographs and the first to expose the public to the
wonders and beauty of life in the coral reef.
Following his diving adventures in Australia he turned to diving in
Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and wrote another fascinating book about
diving, "Serendib", based on the ancient name for Ceylon, which was
regarded as such a fortunate place that the word "serendipity" is
derived from it. For many years he dived every time he could in what
were then the exquisitely beautiful reefs around the island, and
watched with great sorrow as these were almost entirely destroyed,
largely by mining for construction material in a country with little
limestone resources. Arthur told me that he was so pained by this
that he could never bring himself to write about corals again, and by
that time he was confined to a wheelchair and could no longer dive.
But he continued to be fascinated by corals until the end. He was
horrified at how the world of reefs he had loved had vanished
practically without a trace. As the originator of Clarke's Law: "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" he
was entranced with delight by the work of the late Wolf Hilbertz and
myself on electric coral reef restoration, which he immediately
grasped, and he lobbied the Sri Lankan Government as hard as he could
to use it to restore their coral reefs and fisheries. Sadly, they
have yet to listen, being pre-occupied with other matters than
bringing back their lost corals and fish.
Coral reefs have lost another forgotten pioneer.
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226
goreau at bestweb.net
http://www.globalcoral.org
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