麻豆约拍

Reflections on the modern pioneers of the environmental movement. Today - Judith Wright, one of Australia鈥檚 finest poets whose poems forged a new way of looking at and valuing the Australian landscape and wildlife.

In 1962, increasingly concerned by environmental destruction, Judith founded the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland with three friends and was president of the organisation until 1975.

She was a leading force in the successful campaign to prevent oil drilling in the Great Barrier Reef and fought to create the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It was a campaign that relied not on arguments about the beauty of the Reef but carefully marshalled scientific evidence and thorough administrative and legal action.

In later years, she focussed on land rights for indigenous Australians which she saw as a part of her environmental activism

The writer Corin Throsby reflects on the poetry and activism of Judith Wright. "She showed generations of Australians that our landscape may be dusty and craggy, but that it has a profound and unique beauty. After a century of thinking the bush was something to be feared and tamed, she sent a loud and defiant message - this land is worth fighting for鈥�.

Producer: Natalie Steed
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production in association with The Open University.