Green Fantasies: Photographic representations of biodiversity and ecotourism in the Western Pacific

Abstract

Photography is a powerful tool for persuading donors to support conservation programs in the Pacific, but it frequently distorts the ecological concepts from which their legitimacy is derived. In this paper we argue that the images of charismatic wild life used to portray the Pacific as a“pristine wilderness” of rainforest and reef, betray the hegemonic ideology underpinning both biodiversity conservation and its related ecotourism development projects.

Key Words: Biodiversity, Pacific, photography, environmentalism