The Great Barrier Reef is doing just fine: a precautionary tale

For a wonder of nature such as the GBR, which we all want to preserve for our children's children to see, applying the precautionary principle to every imaginable risk, however remote, is neither sensible nor economically feasible. Rather, we should take the approach of spending money on carefully monitoring the environment, on managing any demonstrated human, or unwanted natural, impacts, and - as an investment in the future - on supporting the best broad-based research that we can afford. This research should be judged by its excellence rather than on its perceived "relevance" or "usefulness".

We already have an agency called the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which, with the help of other agencies, does an excellent job of monitoring and managing short-term and local human impacts throughout the reef province. And hopefully, in the future, the Authority may learn to deal with larger and longer-term cycles of change, those of a "geological" scale, better than it does at the moment.

Regarding research, the news is much less happy, in that in Australia research remains badly underfunded, especially given that many leading OECD nations are making significant increases in their spending off a higher base than Australia's. Particularly noteworthy is that last week the American congress passed a remarkable bipartisan proposal to double the annual US$4 billion budget of the National Science Foundation (already the world's leading funding agency for undirected science of excellence) over the next 5 years. That's right: DOUBLE, to US$8 billion.

Friends of the GBR, and of the environment generally, can but hope that our Prime Minister remains true to his habits by following this American lead, and that Mr Crean, Mr Brown and Mr Andrew have the wisdom to support him.