Saving the Reef's primary narrative is a history of Western interaction with the Great Barrier Reef, and of reef politics up to and including the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It also examines current elements of reef politics, explored through five essays dispersed throughout the book. All histories are interpretations, but these five essays are more explicitly analytical and revealing of the author's subjectivity. In a book so laden with the implications of how values play out in spheres often considered objective (such as science and commerce), this subjectivity is welcome.

The book's early chapters provide an insight into the complete unknowability of what lay beneath the waves for Europeans 200 years ago. The encounters of early sailors were filled with trepidation: armed with poor or non-existent charts, and only lookouts to watch for coral pinnacles ready to tear the bottom out of a wooden ship, navigating the Reef was a challenging exercise.

Early travellers within the reef perceived both its dangers to shipping and the benefits of the protected shipping lane it created along the coastline, and some began to ask questions about its formation and the marine life it supported.

From the very beginning of European engagement with the reef, its value was largely considered in terms of its usefulness. Despite a steadily deepening understanding of the complexity of the reef's ecology and geology, and a growing environmental ethic, Saving the Reef shows how the reef has repeatedly been framed, understood and managed in light of its usefulness to humans.

There are many examples of this. Some reef islands, including Hayman Island, were populated with goats in the 1800s to provide food for potential shipwreck survivors. In the 1920s, concern about the harvest of turtles was driven by animal welfare considerations but also by fear that the turtle "fishery" would be decimated. As tourism emerged as part of the reef's economic value, moves to prevent shell collection or shooting of birds were challenged in case they impinged too much on the enjoyment of visitors.

Throughout this time, moves to enhance scientific understanding of the reef were primarily driven by potential wealth - scientists conjured "seemingly endless opportunities to develop the reef" in the hope of attracting investment and technology. Lloyd argues that tourism and science have relied on each other, writing that "tourism's existence helps Reef scientists locate relevance within a competitive field for funding. Conversely science... has always given Reef tourism its narratives." Lloyd touches briefly on the long-held knowledge of Traditional Owners of the reef, having indicated in the Introduction that Indigenous perspectives are not a focus of the book.

After World War II, improved technology and ambitious governments made exploitation of non-renewable reef resources a very real possibility, and public awareness of threats to the reef began to sharpen. So too does the focus of the book, the second half of which details the Save the Reef campaign of the 1960s and 1970s.

One of the key themes of the book is the intense politicisation of reef science, particularly evident during the Save the Reef campaign and continuing to this day. For many years, geologists and ecologists had pulled in different directions, but cooperation was essential to understanding the complexity of the reef. In the late 1960s, the Queensland government and oil companies lined up on one side with conservationists and elements of the Commonwealth broadly arrayed on the other, setting the stage for a Royal Commission that took nearly four years. The science - or lack thereof - was hotly contested and politicised throughout this time.

Saving the Reef is a thoughtful history that highlights fascinating themes around Western engagement with the reef, and, as a case study of a conservation campaign, contains plenty of insights relevant to today's campaigners, scientists and politicians. It is not an easy story to tell - the book weaves together the perspectives and actions of a range of actors across several decades. It is a book that rewards early patience and close reading, as both the pace and insights increase as the book progresses.

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At the conclusion of the book, historical narrative and examination of contemporary themes come together powerfully. While the reef's ecosystems may have been "saved" from oil drilling forty years ago, the reef is now at the mercy of a destabilising planetary system. Protecting its catchment, reef formations and biodiversity will no longer be enough. Whether these more local elements should - or can - be protected or restored in the face of climate change is the subject of much debate. This mirrors a tension that plays out in many aspects of modern life: do local actions such as recycling matter in the face of global challenges?

Lloyd's book is an important reminder that it's not only the science of the reef that deserves our attention, but also the stories we tell. Both science and narrative have a role to play if we are to take the action that is required at all levels to save the reef.

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