A SECTION of the Great Barrier Reef has been named after the late Australian "shark man" Ron Taylor, who filmed some of the iconic underwater footage in the movie Jaws.
The reef, 350 kilometres off Mackay, was officially named in his honour on Friday to acknowledge the four decades he spent garnering support for the conservation of the reef.
"Ron would be thrilled to have a reef named after him," his wife, Valerie, who lives in Sydney, said.
"We were always both very passionate about protecting the reef."
Mr Taylor, who was known by many as "the shark man", died in 2012 aged 78 after a two-year battle with myeloid leukaemia.
In the 1960s, the couple shot underwater footage for commercial films and documentaries and enjoyed spearfishing.
It was Mr Taylor's passion for, and proficiency with, underwater photography that led director Steven Spielberg to call upon the couple to film some of the underwater sequences for Jaws.
In 1970, the couple's focus changed to marine conservation and protecting sharks after Mr Taylor had an epiphany.
"He realised we were going back to places on the Great Barrier Reef that we had filmed in the '60s and some of those places were looking pretty dead," Mrs Taylor said.
"And we also decided never to go spearfishing again."
They were able to highlight their marine conservation message and change people's perceptions about sharks through their underwater footage.
Mrs Taylor, who continues to lobby for the reef's protection, says the health of the Great Barrier Reef has continued to decline since the 1960s.
"The Great Barrier Reef is one of the few reefs in the world that anybody can enjoy," Mrs Taylor said.
"People think the reef will always be there but we don't take lessons from the past - I suppose people thought the Tasmanian tiger would always be there."
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