Some of the information we need is descriptive and is based on observational techniques. Water quality data sets are a case in point. However, other information designed to answer 'what if', or 'can we' questions may fall into the category of manipulative research. The scientist might say that the only way to answer the questions is to manipulate some aspect of the natural system and measure it against controls.
Volumes exist on the philosophy and ethics of research, and it would be unwise of me to enter into the debate. However, two observations occur to me. First, there are 'good' things and 'bad' things that affect the broader community perception of the tolerability of manipulative research. Crown-of-thorns starfish can be manipulated for ever. The public sees them as 'bad', therefore any indignities visited on them by researchers are entirely justifiable. Other aspects of the natural system are 'good', thus any manipulative work is seen as unconscionable and intolerable. Yet I suspect the ethical issue is the same.
Second, it is a serious requirement to test the need for any manipulative research carefully. The paradox in destroying or modifying some element of the natural system in order to gain knowledge for positive management is a difficult one to explain sometimes. It is also important, that where such research is permitted, it is cast in the framework of a greater good. (I know this drags us into a debate over pure science or curiosity-led research actually being the source of the basic knowledge and discoveries in so many cases in the history of science). For us though, both the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the CRC Reef Research Centre are established to undertake strategic science. In the case of the latter, specifically directed towards providing the knowledge base for management.
Nevertheless what can be said quite definitely is that the CRC Reef Research Centre and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority question closely all proposals for manipulation. By the time the Effects of Line Fishing experiment commences, it will probably be the most widely consulted experimental design in the history of science. Trivial applications, or proposals that are based on curiosity alone are readily discarded by the management and the Directors of the CRC Board. However, it needs to be clearly understood that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority sees the conservation of the natural system as its primary goal, therefore any activity that places a part of that system at risk must be scrutinised closely. Ironically this could well lead to charges that we stand in the way of knowledge, and exhibit anti-scientific tendencies, for which re-education, particularly of the Chair, is urgently needed. In spite of this, results that can reasonably be obtained by inference from other knowledge or have other non-manipulative experimental designs alternatively available, are to be preferred.
Decisions need to tread a fine line, and are largely a matter for judgement. Sometimes a manipulative experiment to discover 'something' has far less impact than allowing a particular use of the environment to continue in ignorance of its long-term impacts.
The stark reality is that society does not see the scientist as omnipotent, nor that his or her research is automatically justified simply because someone claims a need to have it done. From my point of view, because conservation is the prime task of the authority, we only agree to destroy or alter natural phenomena, in order to gain knowledge unobtainable in any other way.
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
PO Box 1379 TOWNSVILLE QLD 4810. Phone: (077) 500 700, Fax: (077) 726 093
E-mail: registry@gbrmpa.gov.au