Australians are the custodians of the Great Barrier Reef, the greatest living organism on this planet and the only living thing on earth that can be seen from space. Yet this mighty edifice has been under threat for the last fifty-seven years by a coral eating predator, the crown of thorns starfish which has already destroyed at least 50% of it’s live coral. ECOWARRIOR will investigate how this tragedy was allowed to happen when a study by the country’s leading marine biologist, Dr Robert Endean gave the authorities in charge, the cause of this environmental epidemic and a cure of how to fix the problem – fifty years ago. As pressure mounts on how to salvage what is left of the Reef, especially as the tourist industry alone is worth billions of dollars a year, ECOWARRIOR will revisit Endean’s original report and test his theory of how to return an ecological balance to the reef and counter destructive starfish numbers. All of which poses the question: why was this not done before?
Frank Shields is an independent filmmaker with over 40 years experience in Australia, US, UK, Europe and South Africa. His first film, “The Breaker”, a bio of Breaker Morant won the Best Documentary Award at the Sydney Film Festival 1975 and in 1976 he was a finalist in the short fiction category with “The Crossing”, shot by Academy Award cinematographer, Russell Boyd. Since then he has directed five feature films. His first. “Hostage” played for 3 months in mainstream cinemas and his second, “The Surfer” was invited to the prestigious Director’s Fortnight in Cannes and was the only feature to represent Australia that year, 1987. Shields is also one of the few Australian directors to have a retrospective of his work shown at the Le Cinematheque in Paris from where his two features were invited to the Edinburgh and Berlin Film Festivals. His latest film, a feature documentary “Remember Belsen” about the liberation of the Bergen Belsen Concentration camp in the dying days of WW2.
