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Saving the Great Barrier Reef from disaster, media then and now

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-19, 02:10 authored by Foxwell-Norton, K, Elizabeth Lester
The Great Barrier Reef is the most recognizable of the Australian properties on United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage List. At the time of its inscription in 1981, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature noted that ‘… if only one coral reef site in the world were to be chosen for the World Heritage List, the Great Barrier Reef is the site to be chosen’. The listing followed the ‘Save the Reef’ campaign, which ran through the 1960s and 1970s and highlighted threats from rapid industrialization and a nation riding a resources boom. Nevertheless, in recent years, the Reef has teetered on being named a ‘World Heritage Site in Danger’, with similar economic conditions driving its deterioration. This article juxtaposes recent media activism to protect the Reef against the earlier campaign in order to compare and better understand how these campaigns engaged publics and policy makers by representing and communicating threats, and concludes by considering their capacity to influence long-term conservation policy.

Funding

Australian Research Council

History

Publication title

Media Culture and Society

Volume

39

Issue

4

Pagination

568-581

ISSN

0163-4437

Department/School

School of Social Sciences

Publisher

Sage Publications Ltd

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

Copyright 2017 Sage Publications

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

The media

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    University Of Tasmania

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