"Sunshine Coast Council understands that we cannot achieve our sustainability vision for the region without building productive and enduring partnerships with the community. Reef Check is one of a number of organisations that work collaboratively on the Coast with Council, industry and the wider community to raise awareness and capacity about the outstanding environmental values of our home, and the need to manage them wisely. Reef Check's work also contributes to the long term robustness of our economy by helping to conserve, protect and showcase our coasts wonderful marine features." -Ben McMullen, Coordinator Biosphere and Partnerships with Sunshine Coast Council
Monitoring subtropical rocky reefs in South East Queensland
Following the success of our flagship GBR project, Reef Check Australia's South East Queensland project was established in 2007 to monitor rocky reef sites between the Gold Coast, Brisbane area, and Sunshine Coast.
How?
This project is sustained largely through ongoing help from in-kind supporters like SEQ Catchments Ltd, who provide office space and advice. With support from the Australian Government's Caring for Our Country, Sunshine Coast Regional Council, OceanWatch and Redland City Council we have had a busy survey season in South East Queensland, accessing more than 20 sites with the support of thousands of volunteer hours.
We are now working closely with more than a dozen local dive operators who are offering reduced fares for our volunteers and facilitating research in this area.
Our enthusiastic volunteers continue to contribute their time and to make the most of this, we're seeking Adopt a Reef partners to provide the funding we need to formalise and strengthen the project.
When & where?
These surveys take place from August to January each year. Most surveys happen at weekends so our community volunteers can participate outside of their work commitments.
Results?
The data collected from this monitoring is now distributed via our new Reef Health Database and provides a useful resource for current gaps in reef health knowledge about subtropical rocky reefs.
This project provides valuable information where there is currently a serious gap in the data; many of the sites Reef Check visits annually do not have regular long-term monitoring programs. However, water quality pollution from continued urban development is a serious issue within the area, which includes Moreton Bay - a Ramsar Wetland site. Although these reefs differ from the tropical coral reefs to the north, they are a unique and important environment, encompassing tropical, subtropical and temperate species. It is imperative to assess the health of these reefs to ensure these valuable resources are understood and maintained so that human impacts can be identified and managed.
Visit our Reef Health Database to find out more about each of our monitoring locations.