The Great Barrier reef survey teams have been busy this month completing Magnetic Island surveys and adding more sites to the Magnetic Island snorkel trails.   Meanwhile, working together with Reef Ecologic, Reef Checkers celebrated World Ocean Day on Magnetic Island by assisting with a beach clean-up, taking conservation pledges and taking part in island outreach to support the awesome plastic-free initiative The Last Straw on the Great Barrier Reef!  Reef Check Ambassadors are undertaking this work in conjunction with the Last Straw on the GBR to help local cafe's and bars reduce their plastic straw usage in Townsville and on Magnetic Island. We’ll keep you updated on this important project     Reef Checkers were also present at Ecofiesta in Queens Garden, Townsville to help encourage sustainable behaviours and teach people how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Lots of visitors on the day made pledges to reduce their impact, such as reducing single-use plastics. Our volunteers are doing some incredible work in this region and we can’t wait to share more updates with you!

It's been few weeks of events for our Ambassadors, who have been representing Reef Check at the Logan Eco Action Festival (LEAF), the Green Heart Fair, and the Quandamooka Festival.   A team of volunteers ran a stall at LEAF to help raise awareness about local environmental issues, and educate the community on the importance of citizen science. They even got to meet Costa Georgiadis from ABC’s Gardening Australia!  And the Green Heart Fair, Chermside, they ran a community stall helping promote the message of sustainable living, and sharing some tips on how to reduce your plastic use to combat plastic pollution and marine debris.   Meanwhile, some of the team headed over to North Stradbroke Island to help kick off the Quandamooka Festival, sharing information about some of our local survey sites off the island, and promoting local conservation issues.  Reef Check are proud to have been involved in celebrating the people, culture, and beautiful environment of the Quandamooka area.   Two of our lucky Ambassadors were also able to head out on the Moreton Bay Environmental Education Centre's vessel, the MV Inspiration, for a 'beat plastic pollution' session. Robin and Jennah, along with a host of local school teachers, participated in a plankton tow around Moreton Bay, and studied the samples on board for evidence of microplastics. Watch this space for a video about their day of adventures soon! Our Reef Ambassadors program in Brisbane is supported by Queensland Government's Community Sustainability Action Grant Program, Port of Brisbane and Advance Queensland. 

Following some pretty intensive training as part of our first Sunshine Coast based Reef Ambassador course, in May we welcomed 17 new Reef Ambassadors/Ocean Action Agents to our team thanks to a grant from June Canavan Foundation.    It's wonderful to see so many super awesome, inspiring people ready to get active in their community!  We would like to thank each and every one of them for their enthusiasm and ideas and for wanting to help protect our reefs and oceans in any way they can.  We are very excited to see their projects come to fruition!    

Reef Check Australia were excited to introduce 13 new Ocean Youth Action students to the REEFSearch citizen science program in the last month, thanks to SEALIFE Mooloolaba.    Students used their new REEFSearch skills to locate a variety of invertebrates, impacts and substrates found along the Mooloolaba rockpools to test out their new kits in preparation for visiting some local reefs later in the year.      Why not check out the REEFSearch Program and see how YOU can get involved! 

Since 2011, RCA has been monitoring multiple sites on Heron Island as part of a larger collaborative reef research and mapping initiative led by The University of Queensland’s Remote Sensing Research Centre. Heron Island falls within the Fitzroy Marine Zone. The Fitzroy Partnership is a collective of government, agriculture, resources, industry, research and community interests that partner to deliver annual reports on water quality and ecosystem health in the region. Live coral cover is one of five coral indicators utilised to report on marine condition for the Reef Plan Marine Monitoring Program. We work with the Fitzroy Partnership to produce an additional summary report on average percent cover of hard and soft coral for motioning sites on Heron Island scored using Reef Plan Reporting scales for nearshore reefs.  2017 results have just been released as additional information with the annual report card. If you want to see some more info on this site, you can check out the Reef Check summary report. 

Enter to win a unique, handcrafted, wooden ‘Tree to Sea' surfboard, signed by 7-time surfing world champion, Layne Beachley! Tania Kenyon, a Reef Ambassador volunteer and PhD candidate researching coral reefs at UQ, was awarded a Layne Beachley Foundation 'Aim for the Stars' scholarship in 2017 to support her work. She is now raffling this beautiful surfboard to ‘pay it forward'. Funds will go to Reef Check Australia's citizen science and education programs, and to The Layne Beachley Foundation, to support future scholarship winners. Grab your raffle ticket today!

Check out some of our media stories from 2017!   Citizen Scientists Nurture the Moreton Bay Hopespot (Aug 2017) Great Barrier Reef: How you can help stop a great catastophe (April 2017) Beneath the Surface Our Redlands Magazine (Autumn 2017) Check out Moreton Bay's coral reefs (February 2017) ABC Story: Moreton Bay coral discovery mapped out (January 2017)

  Our Ningaloo Project Officer volunteer, Gemma Francis, had the chance to present a poster on the evolution of the regional program at the Australian Coral Reef Society conference held in Exmouth in May 2018.  The poster gave a recap of our work in the region since 2013 and outlined proposed next steps. After 2 years of working with the amazing team at Cape Conservation Group, we have collectively decided that to provide sufficient support for volunteers and partners, a part-time paid coordinator role is critical to support a sustainable reef citizen science monitoring and outreach program for the Ningaloo Coast. At this stage we have currently submitted two grants and hoping to ready to share new plans later this year! The conference presented the perfect chance to connect and discuss plans with the local Exmouth and broader marine science community. Gemma said "It was an incredible event to attend and represent Reef Check. It was inspiring to be part of this scientific community and and great to see ongoing support for this growing project." The conference explored the effects of climate change, in particularly rising sea temperatures, and the monitoring, management strategies for existing coral ecosystems around Australia, with a focus on the Ningaloo region.