Dear {{recipient.first_name_or_friend}}
Our teams have started off the year with a few activities but have oh so many lined up in the next few months. We have a few beach clean-ups happening that everyone can get involved in, so if you are looking for something to do, check out our calendar on the website. In this newsletter we bring you some more highlights from the end of last year.
This months email includes:
- Action of the Month: Time for Love!
- News from the Field
- Brain Food
- Current Coral Affairs
- Get With the Program
Time for Love!
Photo by Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash
Last month we decided to casually sliiiide into the new year. Now that we have taken a cool, calm and delicate approach to the start of 2023, we believe its time to ramp it up a bit. February is the month of love, women in STEMM and lattes… Kicking off with International women and girls in STEMM day AND International Latte day on February 11th followed closely by Valentine’s Day on February 14th. So for this month, lets celebrate the things we love; like science, the big blue ocean and delicious lattes. So lets turn up the love, gratitude and appreciation for the awesome humans and gorgeous environment around us this month.
By the way - February also has International Polar Bear Day, World NGO Day, World Play your Ukele Day, amongst others!
News from the field
Stories and updates from our teams out & about. Check out some of these regional stories on our website!
South East Queensland
Stradbroke Island - Main Beach clean-up
On 26th December 2022, Reef Check Australia held a 'Clean Up for Christmas' beach clean-up at Main Beach, North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah). Despite the weather, a small team of two collected two full bags of plastic. Despite large amounts of wind in the lead up to this event, it was great to less than expected amounts of rubbish and large items washed/blown up on the beach. Unfortunately, hundreds of microplastics were found hidden in the sand. With a small team of two, we managed to find over 100 pieces of plastic under the size of 2cm in just a few hours!!!
Items consisted of plastic lids, bottles, coffee cups, lollipop sticks, plastic cutlery and a myriad of soft, single use plastic items as well as plastic remnants. All data was documented through the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database.
Reef Check Acknowledge the Quandamooka people of Minjerribah, Traditional Custodians of the land and sea country on which these activities took place and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
This project has received funding support from the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science Community Sustainability Action Grant.
Sustainable Urban Seascapes Moreton Bay Workshop
Reef Check Australia snuck off to the always gorgeous Stradbroke Island late last year to join scientists and community members from all over South East Queensland to meet, greet and learn at the Sustainable Urban Seascapes Moreton Bay (SUSMB) Workshop at the Moreton Bay Research Station.
The event was an opportunity to workshop with collaborators and external stakeholders, to showcase the work conducted under the SUSMB project and discuss future research ideas and priorities, build new collaborations and explore proposals for future work.
With so many exciting projects in the pipeline for both Reef Check Australia, and our partners, its exciting to hear how our research can contribute to the ongoing monitoring and well being of Moreton Bay. Stay tuned to hear more!
Reef Check Acknowledge the Quandamooka people of Minjerribah, Traditional Custodians of the land and sea country on which these activities took place and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
This project has received funding support from the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science Community Sustainability Action Grant.
SEQ Surveyor Training
Taking full advantage of the sunny weather and uncrowded conditions, the Reef Check Australia team headed out to Mudjimba Island in December to finish off some in water reef health surveyor training for our new SCUBA surveyors.
Four new reef health surveyors completed their training, with help from Blue Tortuga allowing us to get to the site and take our time in the water, to make sure we all felt comfortable with identification skills, buoyancy, and task loading.
We are excited to see the next batch of local surveyors complete their training and cant wait to see them all out in the water for surveys next time!
Reef Check Acknowledge the Kabi Kabi people of the Sunshine Coast, Traditional Custodians of the land and sea country on which these activities took place and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
This project has received funding support from the Sunshine Coast Councils Environment Levy Partnerships Grant.
Great Barrier Reef
Whitsundays - Boats4Coral Project
The Whitsundays region is a marine paradise and global icon, attracting almost half of all visitors to the Great Barrier Reef. Home to the Ngaro people for millenia, the Whitsundays have deeply significant cultural value and meaning.
Around the world, reefs are under pressure from factors such as pollution, development, climate change and heavy human use of ocean environments. Climate change has been identified as the greatest threat to the future of coral reefs around the world. And Australian reefs are no exception.
In the face of climate change, the Whitsundays, adjoining reefs and supporting ecosystems need help to recover from recurring major stressors like poor water quality and the impact of cyclones.
In 2020, an initiative was set up to encourage collaboration between local Reef community, including Traditional Owners, Reef managers and tourism operators, and scientists to research and establish ways to take local action for Whitsundays reefs.
Reef Check Australia have been involved in the Boats4Coral Program led by Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and Southern Cross University (SCU) since 2020. The program is advancing coral larval reseeding as a routine, safe, sustainable and effective way for local community members to carry out reef restoration.
This year, we were lucky enough to join once again. Each year new lessons are learned, with less scientists involved and more locals, and citizen scientists. Here are a few photos captured of the program in action. Once the coral planula are ready to settle, they are transported to site, and delicately redeployed onto the reef. This year, redeployment occurred at Black Island, right over the top of an existing Reef Check Australia reef health monitoring site, which will enable us to detect any changes in coral cover over time.
Reef Check Australia Acknowledge the Ngaro people of the Whitsundays as the Traditional Owners of the land and sea country where these activities took place and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
Offshore Townville - John Brewer Reef
Last December our team ducked out with Adrenaline Dive to complete a set of reef health surveys at the deeper of our sites based at John Brewer Reef next to the Museum of Underwater Art (MOUA) installed in 2020. This particular site we have been monitoring since 2017 but have been monitoring other sites at John Brewer since 2004!
Adjacent to MOUA, this is one of our favourite sites to survey. Visibility in this area is usually high and the coral coverage here is excellent with layers upon layers of plating and branching Acropora coral. These shallower sites seem to have escaped much damage from the coral eating crown of thorns starfish (COTS) with around 40-50% hard coral coverage over the last 5 years. This time we do not observe of COTS or COTS damage unlike previous years. We also noted at this particular point in time 3 x the abundance of target fish species compared to only 2 years ago were observed. Now is a great time to go out check out what a healthy and abundant reef looks like, and only within a couple of hours of Townsville.
The biggest thankyou to Paul, Nick and the team at Adrenaline Dive for transporting and supporting our surveys in this region and of course our volunteer surveyors Taleatha and Joan. Congratulations also to Taleatha for completing her fish survey training during this trip!
These surveys were conducted on the traditional lands and sea country of the Wulgurukaba, Bindal and Manbarra People. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their Elders past, present and emerging.
Offshore Townsville Surveys were part of Reef Ecologic’s Integrated Coral Reef Citizen Science 2.0 Program, funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Magnetic Island - Alma Bay - Surveys
What better way to spend the Christmas/New Year’s break than with some surveys! On the 30th of December Reef Check Australia visited Magnetic Island to conduct an end of year survey at the always popular Alma Bay.
Alma Bay is a small bay protected from fishing activities, located on the exposed side of Magnetic Island. Its is commonly used recreationally by beach goers and locals, and was initially set up as a Reef Check Australia reef health monitoring site in 2004. Minimal bleaching was recorded during this survey. Some unknown corals scars were present, however overall, the reef appeared healthy with plenty of juvenile foliose corals over the rocks.
This project is made possible through support from Townsville City Council through their Creek to Coral program, and the Integrated Coral Reef Citizen Science 2.0 Program funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on where these activities take place, the Manbarra and Bwgcolman people of Palm Island, and the Wulgurukaba and Bindal People of the Townsville and Magnetic Island region. We pay our respects to their elders, past, present and emerging and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples living in our community today.
Collaborative Clean Up - Whitsundays
in late November 2022, Reef check Australia joined forces for an amazing day out on the water with volunteers from local tour operators, AIMS and three Ngaro Traditional Owners, to clean up 2 identified marine debris hotspots, exchange ideas and information about this gorgeous sea country, learn from each other, and immerse ourselves in the beauty of this gorgeous region.
A total of 32.2kg of debris was removed from Waites Bay, consisting of more than 2,840 pieces of hard plastic, glowsticks, bottle lids (398), lollipop sticks, plastic cutlery , balloons, foam, plastic bottles, foam buoys, toothbrushes (11) and over 8kg of rope. The area was covered is small bits of plastic amongst the pumicestone. Despite a team cleaning up for over 2 hours, there is still plenty of debris left, and is certainly a spot to watch due to its south facing location.
The team then went to Peters Bay, a Reef Check Australia reef health monitoring site, where 19kg of debris was removed by 8 individuals in just over an hour. 657 hard plastic pieces, 110 plastic lids, 44 plastic bottles were removed along with rope, more toothbrushes, rope, shoes, lollipop sticks and soft plastics.
The team headed back past Black Island (the Boats4coral larval redeployment site and Reef Islands Initiative Coral Nurture Program site) and Langford Island to eat, chat and plan the next adventure before heading home for a hard earned rest.
A massive shout out to everyone who donated their time and energy to this project. It really illustrates the power of collaboration. Thankyou to Whitsundays Paradise Explorer for the support and for getting us to these sites. Thankyou to Ngaro Traditional Owners Owen, Eric and Kinny for their assistance, for their insights and their ongoing support of such projects.
Remember, every little bit counts. If you see rubbish on the beach; pick it up. Together, we can and will make an ocean of difference.
Reef Check Acknowledge the Ngaro people of the Whitsundays region, Traditional Custodians of the land and sea country on which these activities took place and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
This project is funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Brain Food
Reviews and details on books, documentaries, and podcasts that we have come across, & wanted to share.
Recommended by one of our amazing volunteers - Deep by James Nestor is amazing! It’s about freediving, marine research and ocean exploration.
One for the little ocean crusaders:
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
These unlikely friends go on an amazing journey and it's up to the snail to save the day when the whale gets beached.
Current Coral Affairs
Check out some of the latest news and research about our ocean
Have you seen a spotted handfish?
Scientists have managed to successfully breed this critically endangered fish from Tasmania.
Get with the Program
Here's what we've got coming up in the next few weeks, keep checking the website for more updates.
Saturday 4 February | Clean Up for the Hatchlings, Sunshine Coast. The snorkel is full but there are still a few spots available on select beaches, so get in quick. Awesome prizes up for grabs from Sealife, Bouldmove, Elixiba and Pranafest.
Saturday 11 February | Beach Clean Up - Bowen, Kings Beach South. Meet at 7.30am at the carpark below Flagstaff Hill. Email [email protected] so we know you are coming.
Sunday 5 March | Clean Up Australia Day Beach Clean Up - Stradbroke Island
If you missed any of our Coast to Coral online events, remember you can always catch-up by taking a look at our YouTube Channel here 
Thanks for reading! If you want to help our work to empower more people to protect Australian reefs, please consider making a monthly tax-deductible donation.
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