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ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to understand the complex values held by those involved in Protected Area and World Heritage stewardship. Using IUCN Protected Area categories, a values framework is developed and applied to demonstrate how values guide stewardship in protected areas. In-depth interviews with key tourism operators, public sector managers and other stakeholders from the iconic World Heritage Site and tourism destination, Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) reveal how shifting ideologies and government policies increased pressures on nature, resulting in new alliances between stewards from the tourism sector and national and international organisations. These alliances were built on shared nature conservation values and successfully reduced increasing development pressures. Three distinct phases in this process emerged at the GBR, which were driven by personal values held by tourism industry representatives, and their recognition of tourism's reliance on nature for business success. Changing mainstream ideologies and political values can erode World Heritage and Protected Areas, and recalibrate values – including the universal values on which World Heritage Sites depend – towards more anthropocentric interpretations. The values framework presented here could be a powerful tool for stewards involved in conservation to remind those who merely manage and govern of the original nature-focused values.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. The declining quality of the GBR and port developments approved by both the Federal and State Governments triggered an acute (environmental and public relations) crisis beginning in 2012. The crisis not only involved an intervention by UNESCO, but also led to global media coverage on the Reef and its “death by a thousand cuts” (Shafy, Citation2013). The Port of Gladstone, where substantial dredging has occurred, received particular attention (Becken et al., Citation2014).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Janne J. Liburd
Janne J. Liburd is a professor of tourism and the director of the Centre for Tourism, Innovation and Culture at the University of Southern Denmark. Janne is the chairman of the UNESCO World Heritage Wadden Sea National Park. By ministerial appointment, she serves on the Danish National Tourism Forum, charged with developing the first strategy for tourism in Denmark. She is a cultural anthropologist: her research interests are sustainable tourism development, innovation, national parks and tourism higher education.
Susanne Becken
Susanne Becken is a professor of sustainable tourism and the director of the Griffith University Institute for Tourism in Australia. Susanne is on the editorial boards of five tourism journals, and has published widely on the topics of sustainable tourism, climate change, energy and water use, tourist behaviour, environmental policy, risk management and protected areas. She recently advised the Queensland Government as an expert on the Great Barrier Reef Water Science Ministerial Taskforce and is on the Air New Zealand Sustainability Advisory Panel.
