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Your reply further states that, “The paper also draws attention to cases of conflicting evidence and does not ignore them.” This is factually incorrect and such can easily be seen in the clear examples I cited in my own review of McCook et al. To briefly mention just four important examples:
1.The extensive long-term coral trout surveys by Ayling, which repeatedly found no statistically significant difference in trout numbers between closed and open reefs, have been ignored. 2.While much was made of a doubling of trout numbers on protected reefs in one of eight reef areas surveyed, the fact that numbers on reefs open to fishing also doubled was ignored, as was the decline in numbers on protected reefs in five of the eight areas. 3.McCook et al. claim that expanded protected zones have resulted in, “major, rapid benefits of no-take areas for targeted fish and sharks”. Yet, this is directly contradicted by Heupel et al., 2010, who found that in reef sharks, "few individuals showed fidelity to an individual reef suggesting that current protective areas have limited utility for this species." Although both studies appear to have been in press at the same time, Heupel was a co-author in both. It is thus difficult to understand how the claim in McCook et al. could be made in good faith and without qualification. 4.McCook et al. state that, “fish abundances in no-entry zones suggest that even “no take” zones may be significantly depleted due to poaching.” However, no discussion or even mention is made of the voluminous evidence which clearly shows the exceptionally low fishing pressure on GBR fisheries. In your reply to me, you intimate that my concerns have no credibility because they have not been published in a peer reviewed journal. Such a position does not seem to be a very well considered one for several reasons:
•It would appear that you will also need to dismiss the McCook et al. study itself; because, as cited above, they admit making extensive use of “grey literature” and unpublished data. •It will also require dismissing your own statements on this issue as mere opinion, for they too have not been published in a peer reviewed journal. •What I have written on this matter is in fact a peer review and what you are suggesting would then be a peer review of a peer review. Presumably this too would be subject to further peer review. •Recent exposure of the misuse of peer review to censor conflicting evidence as well as using non-peer reviewed status to dismiss such evidence, while at the same time freely citing the latter when it supports a desired agenda, has brought great discredit to climate science and the IPCC. It would be well advised for GBRMPA to drop this failed tactic. In my first email drawing my concerns to your attention, I noted that PNAS authors must, “make materials, data, and associated protocols available to readers.”
I then requested that such data be made available for independent examination via download from the internet and asked that it should include all of the numerous unpublished coral trout, crown-of-thorns and coral bleaching survey reports conducted for GBRMPA.
In your current reply you state that the situation, in respect to relevant data that are not published or not readily accessible, “refers to the situation prior to publication of this paper and the release of the data sources in this paper was a very positive step forward.”
Perhaps it is my error; but, I can find no such data in either the McCook et al. review itself or in the online supplementary material and I cannot see any indication of where it may be found elsewhere.
If you could please advise where the released data to which you refer can be accessed it would be appreciated.
For GBRMPA to find nothing to support any concern regarding scientific integrity in any of the above plus the multiple other, specific, well documented and easily verified matters to which I have drawn notice, is unacceptable.
Research integrity is not an optional extra which may be exercised at the discretion of GBRMPA. As the Chairman of an important Australian research institution, you have an obligation under the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research to properly investigate any credible allegations of research misconduct.
Clearly, there is no requirement that such concerns be presented as a formal scientific report in a peer reviewed journal. Your one-page letter of dismissal, which fails to satisfactorily address any of the over 18 specific concerns I have documented, falls well short of properly meeting this obligation.
The immediate response from James Cook University affirming that they take such allegations seriously and will properly investigate them with regard to the reef ARC stands in marked contrast to this belated and dissembling response from the GBRMPA.
So often in matters of propriety, the most serious malfeasance resides not in the original offence, but in the attempt to deny it. I hope that this issue does not have to be pursued down such an unnecessarily unpleasant path.
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