This Campaign Wants Great Barrier Reef to Become First Non-Human Recipient of UN Lifetime Achievement Award

A new global campaign is seeking to have the Great Barrier Reef recognised as the first non-human recipient of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Launched on World Earth Day, ‘Lifetime of Greatness’ is a collaboration between independent creative studio Supermassive and Tourism Tropical North Queensland, alongside a coalition of scientists, Traditional Owners, councils, tourism operators, and environmental advocates. Major brands including Tourism Australia, Qantas, and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation are also supporting the campaign, along with the likes of Sam Bloom, a four-time World Para Surfing champion and the inspiration behind the film ‘Penguin Bloom’.

At the heart of the campaign is a creative reimagining of the Reef as not just as a destination, but as even more than one of the world's natural wonders.

“This was really a big reframing job,” Supermassive co-founder and CCO Jon Austin told LBB. “For me creatively, I think there were two big moments, two key insights that really brought this idea together for me.

"The first one was that when we look at galvanising moments that have led to environmental change, they're normally spearheaded by really inspiring individuals, like David Attenborough, like Al Gore, like Jane Goodall, like Dian Fossey – people who inspire you to do more and to learn more and to do better.

"The second was, as we dug into this award and the criteria behind it, we saw that it's given to individuals who have spent decades helping the planet and its inhabitants. We started to realise just how not just eligible the reef was, but how worthy it was as well. That was a real moment where the stars aligned, going, ‘We have this nominee that is a living, breathing entity, and we have this award that is set up to recognise incredible individuals that have done exactly what the reef has been doing for millennia.’”

Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s general manager of marketing, Lani Cooper, told LBB the campaign is about addressing misconceptions and encouraging informed engagement with the Reef.

“We have really noticed the challenges since our peak visitation to the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, there has been a significant drop off in visitation,” said Lani. “This has come from a mass bleaching event, and some celebrities like Leo and Oprah going around saying, ‘Everything's dead. Don't visit. Don't go. You're going to contribute to killing it.’

“Yes, there are challenges on the reef. We don't discount that at all, but there are some amazing conservation efforts that are happening across the reef, and to be honest, the best thing you can do to help the reef is visit the reef.”

While the campaign is centred around the Reef, its ambition and reach are global. It’s a balancing act that Jon laughed he and Lani “are certainly no strangers to in our careers – having to talk to a global audience about a very specific, far flung, single destination.” 

“There absolutely are challenges when it comes to doing that. I do think, though, that even though the Great Barrier Reef fits the physical description of a singular location, it goes far beyond that,” he said.

“The truth is that the reef holds this really special place in the world's cultural psyche already, people who have never been here before are massively involved in it. We weren't necessarily as constrained by the usual rules of that singular location because of the pre-existing significance of the Great Barrier Reef, so our job was more about giving a really well-known, a really beloved, natural wonder, new dimension and new depth through this reframing of its personality.”

Maintaining that balance – of scale, storytelling and credibility – was a central challenge in the campaign’s creative process.

“Ultimately this campaign has storytelling at its heart,” said Jon. “Like any story, the bigger the audience, the more regions they cover, the more cultural divides between them, the simpler and the more compelling that story needs to be. 

“Fortunately for us, the Great Barrier Reef is already such an incredible figure in people's minds. Add to that the story of the world's largest living individual being recognised by the world's highest environmental honor, and you already have this great story that has all of those awesome levers of drama and intrigue and romance that makes people lean in.”

Lani said the diversity of voices involved in the project was essential to its authenticity, and that while, “The reef breathes and and speaks and has a voice of its own, it really requires the voices of the communities around it.”

“It was so important for us to be able to justify what we're putting forward and to have that truth component. It's backed by science, cultural significance, and by entities that are outside of this tourism space – because it's so much bigger than tourism, what we're trying to do here.

“The hardest part was having a small number that touched on each element, because there are so many people who want to speak to the Reef. We could have blown out. We could have had thousands of people behind this, but there's only so much air space you can get with videos. It was really tough to go, ‘Okay, well, which group can speak to that?’ – the options were endless.”

Lani added she hopes the campaign will lead to a shift in attitudes about the reef, from a reactive stance to one based in education and future-facing support.

“Industries and bodies, we're constantly on the reactive or defense,” she said

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"We see a media alert going out saying, ‘mass bleaching, the whole reef is dead’ – no, it's not. We really needed something that could cut through and connect with people emotionally and help them learn more and encourage them to learn more as well.”

The global integrated campaign runs until the end of June, and the Reef's nomination is underway. Results for the award will be announced later in the year. For more information and to sign your support, visit alifetimeofgreatness.com.