WILDLIFE WHITSUNDAY

Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland

Proserpine/Whitsunday Branch Inc

AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTION TO CONSERVATION IN WHITSUNDAY

RIC COLCLOUGH

-Citation-

Lifelong sailor Ric Colclough arrived in the Whitsunday Islands in 1988. An ardent conservationist Ric founded the Whitsunday Chapter of The Green Party and helped create environmental consciousness in the Whitsundays.

A secret give-away of National Park at Woodwark Bay to an overseas developer for a golf course would have been a fait accompli if Ric had not organised community opposition. That land is once again in the National Park.

Ric helped to put the Whitsundays on the Green map, organising visits by political figures such as Senator Bob Brown, and even bringing Greenpeace’s  ‘Rainbow Warrior’ to Airlie Beach to highlight the danger of oil spills on the Great Barrier Reef.

As a sailor, Ric was aware how damaging anchors were to the magnificent fringing coral reefs of the Whitsundays and helped to found the community group OUCH, The Order of Underwater Coral Heroes. While Ric’s skills as a surveyor were invaluable in the mapping of the sensitive fringing reefs, the instillation of public moorings and reef marker buoys might never have happened if Ric had not been able to enlist national Green support, and bring the ABC 7.30 Report to the Whitsundays to highlight the issue.

WPSQ Whitsunday salutes Ric’s efforts in helping to preserve the natural environment of the Whitsunday region and recognises that this has only been achieved at great personal sacrifice.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            12th December, 1998.