Boundaries are often
the outcome of heritage and conservation processes with implications for
access, resource allocation and legal requirements. Quite often the position of the boundary is a
primary focus of heritage conflicts. The
world heritage listing of the Ningaloo Coast in the northwest of Western
Australia for its outstanding natural values took place between 2001 and 2011. The sparsely populated region is the location
of Australia’s longest fringing coral reef, which forms the basis for important
tourism industries in a remote, arid region with few other viable industries. The administrative and consultative process
of world heritage listing produced three boundaries that progressively decreased
in size. As outcomes of political
processes that mediate between different interests and ideologies, alternative
or shifting boundaries indicate changing power structures driven by new
discourses and/or relationships between interest groups. Hence boundary disputes and outcomes both
express an existing political ecology and set important parameters for future
political ecologies. The purpose of this
paper is to interrogate the shifting and contested relationships between
politics and ecology both before and within the Ningaloo world heritage listing
process that produced these boundaries. Two
elements are more broadly relevant to considerations of political ecology and
heritage: the ways tourism has
influenced the ecology of the region, and how changes in World Heritage Committee
priorities are altering the boundaries of natural heritage region designation.