Delivering for stakeholders as TWQ Hub approaches synthesis year
Australia is currently reeling from record-breaking temperatures and bushfires. Effects of the unprecedented back-to-back mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 continue to impact the Great Barrier Reef and its associated ecosystems. Now, more than ever, we must realise the importance of intervention and restoration of Australia’s marine environments. We need to increase resilience and accelerate recovery.
This issue of View on TWQ highlights the progress made in the fields of intervention for the improved quality of water entering the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, including the conversion of marginal caneland into constructed wetlands and research into effective methods of reducing sediment output from alluvial gullies (that has inspired landholders to undertake their own Traditional Owner-led erosion management project).
Knowledge on reef restoration techniques continues to grow, develop and spread, especially to Great Barrier Reef sea country Traditional Owners (TOs). From the beginning NESP TWQ Hub has approached Traditional Owners knowledge, skills and capacity as vital to the task of protecting and improving the health of the Great Barrier Reef, and the Hub’s enabling of several TO organization representatives to attend a reef restoration workshop on Orpheus Island reflects this.
2020 will be the final year of research in the TWQ Hub and there will thus be numerous outputs describing the results and impacts of our work over the last 5 years. Of particular note will be the range of synthesis projects we have commissioned for the final year of our Hub. Each of these themed synthesis projects will not only bring together the latest scientific understanding from NESP and non-NESP research but will demonstrate how our NESP work has contributed to making a positive change upon real-world environmental, social and economic outcomes.