Wealth of the reef: the entanglement of economic and environmental values in early twentieth century representations of the Great Barrier Reef

Histories of the Great Barrier Reef have characterised the period between 1900 and 1939 as a creative prelude to modern Reef conservationism. These histories, however, have not given sufficient consideration to how perceptions of the Reef were entangled with evaluations of its economic potential. By examining the writings of Edmund Banfield, the intensification of tourism and science, and a collection of popular texts about the Reef, this paper argues that early twentieth-century perceptions of the Reef were entangled with an utilitarian ethos which leaned toward exploitation