Over the (slightly damp) Easter Long Weekend, 2 of our amazing ambassadors put on their raincoats and joined the Gold Coast Seagrass team to conduct the last of the surveys for the current season at Wave Break Island. This all sand, man-made island was constructed as part of the Gold Coast Seaway in 1985. Seagrass has become a vital inclusion to the waterways providing food to the local turtles, sea wrass and even dugongs.         Check out the run down below from Tamara: "We learnt a lot about the importance of seagrass and its role and how fragile it can be. Even kite surfing can be a threat. Despite the rain, we all had a lot of fun with seagrass, transect lines, Easter eggs and even a rainbow thrown in!"     Thanks to the City of Gold Coast Council for supporting Reef Check Ambassadors and events and of course to our awesome ambassadors for getting involved!

Congratulations Surveyors! Our Brisbane and Gold Coast based surveyor trainees completed their intense Reef Health Surveyor courses over on beautiful North Stradbroke Island earlier this month, after weeks of theory training.   We lucked out with some beautiful conditions out at Shag Rock, and our group of trainees demonstrated some excellent ID skills in the field. Looking forward to you all joining us on surveys soon!   Thanks to all the trainers for all their hard work and knowledge, and thanks as always to Ken from Point Lookout SCUBA for looking after us!       This training would not have been possible without the help and support from the Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grant, the Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd, and the The Gold Coast City Council.

Reef Check Australia has a current vacancy for a SEQ Project Coordinator. The successful applicant for this position will be based in Brisbane and will have a unique blend of science, field experience and community engagement skills to plan, coordinate and lead our Brisbane and Gold Coast projects.     This is a casual position, 2/3 days a week and reports to the Reef Check Australia SEQ Programs and Community Engagament Manager If you think you might fit the bill - check out the job description and apply now!  

  We're proud to share the monitoring results from our 2018 Heron Island surveys in the newly released Reef Check Australia summary report.  Reef Check Australia has been monitoring sites on Heron Island since 2011 and we continue to work with The University of Queensland’s Remote Sensing Research Centre on this project.     Here's a few titbits from the report to whet your coral appetite! -  The total average hard coral cover recorder across all sites was 42% Eight out of 15 sites had coral cover greater than 50% Most sites had low levels of soft coral (eight out of 15 sites) Coral bleaching was recorded on all sites, but in relatively low levels.   Thanks to The University of Queensland’s Remote Sensing Research Centre, Heron Island Research Station and Heron Island Resort for their in-kind support and advice. And of course a massive thanks to the 2018 Heron Reef Research Team superstars - Chris Roelfsema, Douglas Stetner, Mitch Lyons, Emma Kennedy, Daniel Harris, Kat Markey, Josh Passenger, Eva Kovacs, Rodney Borrego, Jodi Salmond (who also supplied these awesome images) and Stuart Phinn.      

Every year hundreds of millions of people around the world in more than 7,000 cities in over 180 countries take part in Earth Hour. This year, the team at Reef Check Australia decided to show our support for Earth hour by inviting our supporters to switch off their minds as well, for a Yoga by candlelight event.     The beautiful space for our Brisbane event was generously donated by The Academy of Grounding and our wonderful Yogi Grace donated her time taking everyone through a relaxing Yin practice.  Just the thing to truly switch off!       We'd also like to give massive thanks to our Sunshine Coast yoga instructor, Breeana, and also the Perigian Beach Community Centre for generously donating their time, space and energy to this wonderful and relaxing event!     Here's the lowdown from one of our Sunshine Coast attendees, Alexandra Arri:   "Switch off to switch off was such a great way to show solidarity in highlighting the importance of Earth Hour. Breeanas kind and humble nature only added to the calmness of the flickering candle lights as she lead us through an hour of gentle yoga poses. I would definitely recommend future events organised by Reef Check Australia."    Big thanks to our amazing Ambassadors who helped to organise these events.Also, thanks to the June Canavan Grant for supporting the Sunshine Coast event and to the Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grant for supporting the Brisbane event!   

Our Brisbane and Gold Coast Reef Ambassador training has wrapped up - and we're just as excited as our new Ambassadors about what lies ahead! We're going to leave it to new Reef Ambassador Jodi Burley to tell you a bit more: "I recently participated in Reef Check’s Ambassador’s training in West End. I joined Reef Check because I wanted to meet like-minded people and I had the impression that this organisation is open to individual ideas and with implementing them. My expectations have been fulfilled- I have recently learned that you can recycle soft plastics at supermarkets, and I am working with other Ambassadors on a project to improve awareness for recycling and reuse of plastics. Awesome experience in citizen science based conservation!!!" Go Jodi and all our other Ambassadors, new and existing, who are leading the way in their community!   If you'd like to join Jodi and the others in becoming a Reef Ambassador, there's still a couple of spots left on our upcoming Sunshine Coast and Noosa training course. But it closes soon so if you're interested then get your application in fast.  

  The Reef Check Australia team is excited to be joined by our new Great Barrier Reef Project Coordinator! Nathan Cook is an applied scientist and specialist in coral reef restoration and capacity building. He has been a passionate advocate for sustainability and stewardship in coral reef ecosystems in South East Asia and Australia for nearly 20 years.   A PADI Master Instructor with over 3500 dives, Nathan became a Reef Check Indo-Pacific Instructor trainer in 2013, pioneering an innovative coral reef conservation program in Thailand. He has led and taught coral reef survey programs, practical coral reef conservation and marine resource management, and designed and implemented a range of experiential learning programs, including curricula focused on integrating the theory of marine management with active reef restoration techniques development and installation of coral nurseries and artificial reefs.  Nathan combines his skills and experience to pursue his passion for supporting developing countries in creating self-sustaining systems of conservation and preservation of their coral reef ecosystems. We are thrilled to have Nathan joining our team and look forward to getting busy on the GBR over the coming months!

Reef Check Australia were proud to be part of this year's Clean Up Australia Day - which has become Australia's largest community based environmental event! Our Brisbane team were invited over to Straddie by the The Stradbroke Island Management Organisation (SIMO) to participate in a clean up of Main Beach, at Point Lookout. Our fantastic team of Reef Ambassadors helped collect over 170kg of debris, including 90,000 pieces of plastic, and an estimated 885 fishing glow sticks.       Emmie (a Straddie local), said that it was 'shocking seeing the amount of glow sticks from the fishing industry!', but added that it was awesome to see 'so many passionate people willing to do their bit' and take part in the clean up. Thank you to the team for doing such a fantastic job, to SIMO for having us participate, and thanks to the Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grant for supporting our activities and clean ups in the region!   Meanwhile, Reef Check Australia on the Sunshine Coast was joined by Plastic Free Noosa and Councillor Joe Jurasevic for a clean up of the Noosa Marina on Friday as part of activities for Clean Up Australia Day.  Despite the weather, teams managed to remove hundreds of bits of styrofoam, small bits of plastic, fishing debris and cigarette butts from the water and coastline.  We will continue the investigation as to what is making up the debris in the area as soon as the weather decides to play nice! Thank you to everyone who came and lent a hand on the day, and to Noosa Council for supporting this Clean Up Australia Day event.