March is one of the busiest months of the year when it comes to calls to action, so here's a reminder of what's coming up that you might like to get involved with!   If you haven't already, please consider signing up to be part of a Clean Up Australia Day event near you this Sunday (3rd March).  Clean up Australia Day started in 1989, when founder Ian Kiernan decided to try and clean up Sydney Harbour. It has since become Australia’s largest community-based environmental event. Whether it’s signing up to an event in your area, creating an event yourself or simply setting yourself a task like picking up ten pieces of trash on 3rd March – we can all get involved!   March 22nd marks World Water Day - a UN event which aims to draw awareness to the lack of safe water for many - aiming to bring water to all by 2030. Visit their website to find out how you can get involved and help raise awareness that "Whoever you are, wherever you are, water is your human right".    Last but certainly not least, don't forget to sign up for Earth Hour on 30th March! We hope you'll all be joining us in switching off to show your support for this call for climate action.    And please check out our Take Action pages for more info on how you can help protect our reefs and oceans every day!      

Our SEQ dive teams have kicked off the 2019 season with visits to Moreton Bay and the Sunshine Coast, First up, Reef Check surveyors visited some of our inshore Moreton Bay sites in the second week of January, at St Helena, Mud Island and Green Island. The sites, which RCA aims to visit twice a year, are very close to the river, and urban development along the shore, making it a challenging environment for the coral communities that inhabit the area! With high silt loading and a lot of sediment in the water, it can also make for challenging diving conditions, but our surveyor team did a fantastic job of getting the surveys done at four of our sites! They found plenty of coral battling away, some interesting species of fish, including goatfish, snapper, some wobbegongs and a few sargassum filefish! Thanks to the team at Moreton Bay Research Station for helping us get out to these sites and to the Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd for supporting our surveys. And of course to our amazing surveyors for their hard work!     A Reef Check team also had the pleasure of visiting South East Queensland's most spectacular dive site, Flinders Reef, on the 20th of January. Flinders is home to an incredibly diverse range of marine and coral species, and most renowned for its beautiful large plate and branching corals! Reef Check Australia have been surveying sites at Flinders since 2007, and we have a number of monitoring sites there. Strong currents made it difficult to navigate to the first survey site, but our fantastic team of surveyors managed to complete a survey at our Alden's Cave site and collected an array of fantastic images for updating our surveyor training material! Thanks to Adreno, Scuba Shane and Supercat Charters for putting the trip together, and to the Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grant for supporting our activities and surveys in the Moreton Bay area. As ever we couldn't achieve this without our awesome team of surveyors, and special thanks to Gary Cranitch for the incredible images!       Our Sunshine Coast team also recently got out on the water at beautiful Bullcock Beach to do a survey - and didn't miss the opportunity to add in a clean up while they were there as part of the Clean Up for the Hatchlings event. Great work team!         With plans in place to pick up our in water activities in both the Gold Coast and Noosa regions this year, it's going to be a busy time for our Scuba Surveyors!  Don't forget, there's still time to registered your expression of interest for the upcoming Scuba Surveyor training courses in the Brisbane/Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast/Noosa regions. 

February 2nd saw the always popular annual Clean Up for the Hatchlings event at La Balsa park, which is an important area for turtles, but also very popular with human visitors. And unfortunately where there are large numbers of humans, there is also inevitably going to be rubbish!                                               This collaborative event is organised by Reef Check Australia, Sea Life Mooloolaba and the Sunshine Coast Council. Reef Check Australian teams took part in clean ups both in and out of the water, with teams of snorkelling and dive volunteers collecting marine rubbish.                                                              Over 700 volunteers took part in the clean up across the region and over 1.5 tonnes of marine debris was collected. This almost doubles last year's collection of 800kg!  This year, land based volunteers found a lot of foil based confetti, along with  zip ties, plastic clasps from bread bags, and dog waste bags. Meanwhile the dive and snorkel teams picked up lots of bottles and aluminum cans - items which easily be recycled through the new Sunshine Coast container refund scheme, Containers for Change.                                                                                          Marine debris is a huge threat to turtles young and old, who can end up eating plastics and other items. We can all help the hatchlings every day, simply by reducing our landfill and plastic waste! 

The Reef Check Australia team headed over to the Queensland Museum last week to join in the celebrations for the launch of the Queensland chapter of the Australian Citizen Science Association, and the new Queensland Government grants program which supports citizen science projects in the state.Reef Check shared a table with the Gold Coast Catchment Association, who were sharing information about a number of citizen science organisations supported by the City of Gold Coast.   With applications to our upcoming Reef Scuba Surveyor and Reef Ambassador training courses having been opened to applicants on the Gold Coast, we're looking to boost our involvement in the region this year with support from the council of the City of Gold Coast.The event was also attended by the Minister for Innovation, Science and the Digital Economy, Leeanne Enoch, who was interested to hear about Reef Check's work on reef monitoring throughout the state.     The team were happy to be part of this event celebrating the important role that citizen science will play in our regional future.    

  Reef Check Australia, as part of the Reef Citizen Science Alliance, has been proud to be a part of ReefBlitz 2018 - an annual citizen science program that has been more important ever during the third International Year of the Reef.  The results are in, and 2018 saw ReefBlitz clock up an amazing 1654 participants, 55 events, 38,392 data points, 3700 volunteer hours and over 40 partners.  Reef Check Australia staff and volunteers got involved in events including the Magnetic Island, Townsville clean up and the University of Queensland's Uni Dive 24 Hours Under Water for the Love of the Reef action. The team also set up a new ReefBlitz survey site at La Balsa Park on the Sunshine Coast, spotting the small white little nudibranch (Trapania gibbera) for the first time ever within the river during the process! Check out the ReefBlitz annual story for more info. And a huge thank you to all Reef Checkers who took part in this years' research and events.   

We're Hiring! Reef Check Australia has a current vacancy for a GBR Project Coordinator. The successful applicant for this position will be based in Townsville and will have a unique blend of science, field experience and community engagement skills to plan, coordinate and lead our Great Barrier Reef projects.       If you think this sounds like you - check out the job description and apply now!  

  Our new General Manager, Joanne Needham, has been working away behind the scenes for the last couple of  months of 2018, but we think the New Year is a good time to officially welcome her to the Reef Check Australia team  and share a bit about her with you.         Joanne has a unique blend of skills that she brings to the team, along with a positive and energetic attitude which is much appreciated (not to mention essential) here!  She has a long history of working in the charity sector, being a part of Girl Guiding both in Australia and the UK as a member and a leader for more than 20 years, as well as working for The Refugee Council whilst living in the UK. She also has a stong background in finance, with over a decades’ work as a Management Accountant in both the UK and Australia. And she backs up her love of the ocean with a Bachelor of Marine Science Honours degree with a major in marine biology & ecology from The University of Queensland. We are happy and excited to have Joanne on board as we build on our essential work to protect our marine environments in 2019!

  Expressions of interest are now open for both Reef Surveyor and Reef Ambassador training in 2019 - so keep reading and get your application in ASAP if this sounds like you!   Be A Reef Check Scuba Surveyor Reef Check Scuba Surveyor training is a fun way to meet a tribe of reef-mind people, find out more about our beautiful reefs, boost your dive skills and build your capacity to actively contribute to scientific research. You don't need to have previous science or survey experience--we'll provide you with comprehensive training to safely collect great quality data to help look after reefs.  We'll be running training courses both for Brisbane and the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast region in 2019. So if you're a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, or equivalent, and you've always wanted to get more involved in reef research - now is your chance!      Expression of Interest Forms - Scuba Surveyor Training Brisbane and Gold Coast: Expressions of Interest Form For SCUBA Surveyor Training, March 2019 Sunshine Coast: Expressions of Interest Form For SCUBA Surveyor Training, May 2019   Be A Reef Ambassador Our Reef Ambassador program is a ground breaking project, training community outreach volunteers to actively inspire, motivate and support their communities to better understand and help protect local marine environments. Reef Ambassadors are reef role models who actively empower their communities to better understand and help protect marine environments at a local level. If this sounds like something you'd love to be involved in, then apply now!       Expressions of Interest Forms - Reef Ambassador Training: Brisbane and Gold Coast: Expression of Interest Form For Reef Ambassador Training, March 2019 Sunshine Coast: Expression of Interest Form For Reef Ambassador Training, May 2019   Check out the calendar for more info on all these training sessions!