I think we need to be careful here, in that, from my admitedly limited reading around, the Australian program is primarily driven by economic, rather than ecological concerns. In short, they don't want the reefs devastated as they will lose significant income from tourists etc.
From what I could see, there is some evidence that CoT infestations actually increase the biodiversity, but, recovery times are outside of what we consider to be realistic times (decades).
The bottom line here is that we still do not know enough about ecology to make meaningful choices. The number of disasters that have resulted from well meaning human intervention in ecological balance are well know.
As a career scientist (not in marine biology though) I would seriously doubt that either of the two scientists bandied about here would think that they have all the answers, and I am sure that they would be the first to say that we need more research, and to formulate the questions more carefully.
. In Quebec alone, my home province in canada, each year there is near to 1000 forest fires kindled each summer by lightning alone! Luckily they are not often in human inhabited areas. But there are tremendous efforts put in to fight them because they cause a tremendous loss of ressources to industry.
