As the Great Barrier Reef continues to suffer both global and acute health pressures, focus continues to increase on management interventions \u2013 should we, and if so how?<\/p>\n
Common among interventions is the direct restoration of corals, but which of the many varying techniques for coral restoration will be most effective, and how can we devise and share knowledge of best practice in coral restoration?<\/p>\n
The NESP Tropical Water Quality Hub \u2018Project 4.3′<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Best practice coral restoration for the Great Barrier Reef\u2019 aims to answer this pressing question.<\/p>\n Led by Dr Ian McLeod at James Cook University\u2019s TROPWATER facility, the three-year project will examine the effectiveness of past and current coral restoration efforts, including an Australia-first \u2018coral gardening\u2019 project already underway at Fitzroy Island near Cairns.<\/p>\n A product of cooperation between TWQ Hub researchers, GBRMPA, the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators and NGOs Reef Ecologic and Reef Restoration Foundation, the project will trial the growing of cuttings of Acropora <\/em>coral on metal frames in the water off Fitzroy Island, a popular tourism site.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of many restoration efforts under evaluation by Dr McLeod and the project team.<\/p>\n Dr McLeod said interventions in response to acute damage was more important now than ever.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s definitely been a shift from protectionist to interventionist thinking when it comes to GBR management,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is starting an initial scoping study to look at what you can do to accelerate recovery after an acute damage event, like a cyclone or a ship strike.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can accelerate that recovery after an acute event, even the simplest stuff, it\u2019s got a lot of benefits \u2013 but we need to be looking at \u2018what\u2019s the best practice for doing this?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cUp until now most of these projects have been focused on coral growth. what we\u2019ll also be doing is looking into what the return on investment is, what kind of scale these techniques are applicable at \u2013 is it something that would be useful for example to the tourism industry because it can keep a dive site in good condition, or is it something that could be used on a wider scale?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLooking at a single site might seem a bit small compared to the entire Great Barrier Reef but if it\u2019s a major tourist site, we\u2019re talking about potentially billions of dollars to the tourism industry.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course this all happens within the context of a changing global climate, which has big effects on the GBR \u2013 the global effort to mitigate climate change has to continue, that\u2019s vitally important.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the Great Barrier Reef continues to suffer both global and acute health pressures, focus continues to increase on management interventions \u2013 should we, and if so how? Common among … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4098,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4162","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4162\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesptropical.edu.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Back to the February 2018 e-Newsletter contents<\/strong><\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"