The Great Barrier Reef: News media, policy and the politics of protection

Since the 1970s, the Reef has been a site where Australian environmental policy hasflourished, mirroring global environmental policy seeking to ‘balance’ human activitythrough ‘ecologically sustainable development’. The article examines the parallel andintersecting processes of modern environmental policy and news media practice in thecontext of the Reef to unveil how Australia’s news media are communicating criticalmoments in the protection of the Reef. Through two key conservation moments – the1981 World Heritage Listing and the 2012 threat to place the Reef on the List of WorldHeritage in Danger – the article examines the role of news media in different geographiccontexts, highlighting the complex politics of protection from early conservationcampaigns to the contemporary era of protecting the Reef in the context of globalenvironmental crisis. We identify how ecologically sustainable development discoursescan be used to communicate positions that challenge and discredit policy initiativesaimed at protecting natural environments