Richard helped kick start the process that has given us the worlds’ greatest marine park.

Here’s how I recall an early encounter back in the mid-1970s as I was beginning to find my way in the GBR research scene.

‘You need to do manta tows’ said Richard. So it was that we spent some exhilarating and exhausting time at sea recording the state of some dozens of reefs while being towed behind a rubber boat.

Over the years, others picked up and went with the manta board technique. After half a century, long after we’d all moved on to other things, the big picture of our Reef as a rich and ever-changing tapestry is revealed.

To use Richard’s own words ‘the threats of human impacts to the colour and garden-like properties of coral reefs are [now] more readily recognized than is the case for less charismatic coastal and marine ecosystems’.

We can all thank Richard for his catalyzing role in bringing about this state of affairs.