A Justice Analysis of Conservation in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
In the decades following the publishing of the Brundtland Report, defining sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (WCED, 1987, p43.) literary dialect has shifted to highlight the importance of justice perspectives within sustainable development progression. Encroaching further into an era of ongoing climate crises the inequity and disproportionate consequences have only been exacerbated (Davis and Ramírez-Andreotta, 2021), highlighting the need bring parity across the globe. Global and regional injustices, which can occur on multiple scales, should be tackled via embedding justice concepts into policy formation, subsequently improving satisfaction and fostering support for authorities (Smith and McDonough, 2010).
Decolonisation
Colonisation is defined as the “takeover, often by conquest, of one country by another” (Aldrich and Johnson, 2018, p.153), a phrase that already illicits violence and hierarchal control. As such decolonisation is a concept which aims to revert such detriments, in many cases returning dispossessed land to its rightful owners. However it is not just physical land which requires decolonisation from western hostility.
Opposed to mainstream white-washed perspectives of Aboriginal history prior to Captain Cook’s landing on the East Coast, Australia was far from an uninhabited wasteland (Moreton-Robinson, 2015). In fact life in Australia had flourished for tens of thousands of years with an alternate kinship to “country” forming a nuanced balance between anthropocentric and ecology communities (Stocker et al, 2015). Relations between indigenous first nations people and “country” can only be described as intrinsically intertwined evidencing complete custodianship, thus framing an understanding that colonial rule perceived as non-empirical and irrational (Hlengwa, 2019). Consequently without input from indigenous groups the management of Australian land, including coastal environments, has become increasingly complex.
In regards to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park climate change is considered the most significant threat facing the area (The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, 2024) and consequently many western style conservation efforts have been made, such as financial fund-raising and ecotourism developments. It can be argued however that decolonising such conservation efforts could entail greater rates of success. Aboriginal first nations people have a compounded wealth of generational resilience to climate change, earmarked by heightened vulnerability and 50,000 years of occupation (Lyons et al, 2019). This brings into debate the paradox that indigenous knowledge, inline with experienced vulnerability, creates evidenced resilience (Lyons et al, 2019); further justifying the need to prioritise traditional knowledge systems, as such derailing western ideological gain from the area (Manzo et al, 2019) by decolonising reef conservation efforts.
Participation
In order for decolonisation efforts to be deemed effective it is vital that indigenous and first nations people are proactively empowered within policy formation, highlighting the importance of participatory justice. In excess of seventy indigenous groups possess traditional ownership within the Marine Park (Great Barrier Marine Park Authority, 2022), signifying reliance on this threatened landscape to sustain their communities. Thus, fairness assumes that in policy discourse and conservation efforts, these voices must be prioritised and heard, representing lived experience and the unique understanding they possess. Participation fosters systemic change, but it must also highlight the importance of education, equality and trust (Reed, 2008). In addition, the arguable success of conservation efforts, whether for anthropocentric or ecological gain, become increasingly integral when discussing natural resources (Smith and McDonough, 2010), which the reef evidences. This indicates that for reef conservation efforts to succeed, participation is integral to policy reform; demanding ubiquitous inclusion.
Reference List
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