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… the Great Barrier Reef is still the closest most people will come to Eden.

–Judith Wright

The Great Barrier Reef lies off the coast of Queensland: 2000 kilometres of spectacular coral reefs, sand cays and islands, Australia’s most precious marine possession. Teeming with life, it covers 350,000 square kilometres.

In the late 1960s the Reef was threatened with limestone mining and oil drilling. A small group of dedicated conservationists in Queensland – John Büsst, Judith Wright, Len Webb and others – battled to save the Ellison Reef from coral-limestone mining and the Swain Reefs from oil exploration. The group later swelled to encompass scientists, trade unionists and politicians throughout Australia, and led in 1976 to the establishment of a guardian body: the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

That it still survives is a legacy of activists, artists, poets, ecologists and students.  In 1967 they were branded as ‘cranks’; now they should be recognised as ‘visionaries’. 

Publishers’ Preface xi

Foreword, 2014 by Margaret Thorsborne, AO xvii

Foreword, 1996 by Judith Wright xxi

Foreword, 1977 by Judith Wright xxiii

Introduction xxv

1 The First Manoeuvres 1

2 The Government, Science and the Reef 15

3 Move and Counter-move 27

4 Tragedy Abroad 43

5 Geologists versus Biologists 56

6 People Take a Hand 74

7 The Unions Move In 94

8 A Halt, and a Surrender 109

9 Quarrels and a Victory 120

10 From Torres Strait to Canberra 134

11 We Get Reinforcements 149

12 The Fight That Should Not Have Been Needed 162

13 Four Years of Looting 181

14 Finale Without an Ending 187

Postscript 191

References, Sources and Bibliography 197

Index 200

Acknowledgements 205