Reef Grief: investigating the relationship between place meanings and place change on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Résumé
It is well established that ecosystems bring meaning and well-being to individuals, often articulated through attachment to
place. Degradation and threats to places and ecosystems have been shown to lead to loss of well-being. Here, we suggest
that the interactions between ecosystem loss and declining well-being may involve both emotional responses associated with
grief, and with observable impacts on mental health. We test these ideas on so-called ecological grief by examining individual
emotional response to well-documented and publicized ecological degradation: coral bleaching and mortality in the Great
Barrier Reef ecosystem. The study focuses both on one off events of coral loss and the prospect of continuing decline on the
self-reported well-being of residents living within the ecosystem, visitors, and those whose livelihood is dependent on the
marine resource: data from face-to-face surveys of 1870 local residents, 1804 tourists, and telephone surveys of 91 fishers
and 94 tourism operators. We hypothesise that the extent to which individuals experience ecological grief is dependent on
the meanings or intrinsic values (such as aesthetic, scientific, or biodiversity-based values), and is moderated by their place
attachment, place identity, lifestyle dependence, place-based pride, and derived well-being. Results show that around half
of residents, tourists and tourist operators surveyed, and almost one quarter of fishers, report significant Reef Grief. Reef
Grief is closely and positively associated with place meanings within resident and tourist populations. By contrast respond-
ents who rated high aesthetic value of the coral ecosystem report lower levels of Reef Grief. These findings have significant
implications for how individuals and populations experience ecosystem decline and loss within places that are meaningful
to them. Given inevitable cumulative future impacts on ecosystems from committed climate change impacts, understand-
ing and managing ecological grief will become increasingly important. This study seeks to lay conceptual and theoretical
foundations to identify how ecological grief is manifest and related to meaningful places and the social distribution of such
grief across society.