While in the past Australians wrestled with what the Reef is, today they are struggling to reconcile what it will be... To do this, we need to understand the Reef's intertwining human story.

The Great Barrier Reef has come to dominate Australian imaginations and global environmental politics. In Saving the Reef, environmental historian Rohan Lloyd charts the social history of Australia's most prized yet vulnerable environment, from the relationship between First Nations peoples and colonial settlers, to the Reef's most portentous moment - the Save the Reef campaign launched in the 1960s.

Through this gripping historical narrative and interwoven contemporary essays, Lloyd reveals how the scale of damage caused to the Reef has forced twenty-first century Australia to reconsider what 'saving' the Reef really means.