Making Waves: Reef Citizen Science for Impact Jennifer Loder, Marie-Lise Schläppy, Jodi Salmond, Terry Done, Annie Bauer, Alex Lea, Andrew Harvey, Laura Fantozzi, Chris Roelfsema, Jos Hill I work with Reef Check Australia, an environmental charity dedicated to protecting Australia's reefs and oceans by engaging the community in hands-on citizen science, education and conservation activities.

Reef Check Australia Part of global network (>90 countries) Launched in 2001 More than 60 priority monitoring sites in Queensland Reef Check Australia is part of the global Reef Check network. The protocol was developed in the mid 90’s as a standardised method to document reef health around the world. Here in Australia it launched in 2001, making this our 15 year anniversary. We’ve since expanded to more than 60 reef monitoring sites along the coast of Queensland and more recently to Ningaloo Reef in WA too.

:Responding to reef monitoring gaps Limited long-term monitoring data for subtropical reefs in South East Queensland Important to monitor because: transitional zone & rapidly growing population Data gap that citizen science program can help to fill This map shows the locations of the 60+ RCA monitoring sites along the coast. The area I want to focus on for the rest of the case studies is this region down here in South East Queensland. These are much less famous reefs than their neighbours to the north on the GBR. And as such, while there have been some great research projects, there is relatively limited long-term monitoring across the region. This area is particularly important to monitor as these subtropical reefs are located in a transitional marine zone likely to show notable climate change impacts such as early species range shifts, as well as being situated in a rapidly growing population. So in 2007, RCA expanded to the region with the support of Australian Government and local Natural Resource Management body. And since then has helped to fill a notable gap in consistent available marine data for the region.

Identifying reef condition trends Cumulative reef impacts used to assess potential reef threats Consistently high abundance of discarded fishing gear and other debris documented on Gold Coast dive site Benefits: Highlight key threats Source reduction project RCA data also called further attention to reef condition and threats as part of NRM plan review. This figure shows the cumulative abundance and composition of reef health impacts across monitoring locations and was circulated as part of the review process. One outcome was that it highlighted high levels of debris (both discarded fishing gear fishing gear (2.7/100m²) and other debris (0.8/100m²) at a local Gold Coast local site. This prompted RCA to seek funding for collaborative underwater & coastal clean ups with another citizen science organisation, Tangaroa Blue, as well as a stakeholder workshop to develop source reduction plans for key litter items.

Validating reef habitat maps Dataset used for natural resource management planning including Healthy Waterways Report Card Benefits: Leverage existing capacity Identify new monitoring sites Management applications Stakeholder collaboration This project offered a complementary approach to data collection and application. It leveraged existing citizen science skill sets, as trained RCA volunteers were taught how to apply the same benthic categories to collecting spot check data at multiple ground-trothing locations (SEE FIGURE). This was cost effective and offered volunteers new capacity building opportunities and engagement in a very research output. Experts at UQs Remote Sensing Research Centre translated the field data into spatial boundaries (SEE FIGURE) and provided experience and quality control for the project. Natural resource management agencies benefitted from a new refined and updated up-to-date decision making resource. And an unanticipated outcome was even broader collaboration and consultation beyond original partners. As there are more areas left to map, discussions to discuss progress and next steps brought together science and management stakeholders at multiple levels of government, natural resource management agencies, not for profits and research institutions for a roundtable discussion that identified the need for a consolidated and comprehensive habitat map across Moreton Bay. The neutral context of a citizen science project offered a constructive platform to promote discussion.

: Ambassadors Training community engagement volunteers Benefits: Volunteer engagement Increased outreach capacity Knowledge transfer Partnership development Given focus on science communications and policy at the conference. we want to highlight a new outreach initiative. Last year we launched a pilot program called Reef Check Ambassadors to train community outreach volunteers, with the goal to provide enthusiastic ocean-Iovers with the skills, knowledge and pathway to inspire their community. This new initiative was driven by several factors, including wanting to address limited awareness of subtropical reefs in the region (1/4 residents did not know about local reefs in 2010 study), regular invitations to events which with very small part time staff we couldn’t accommodate, and responding to feedback from volunteer that they wanted to actively help educate others and build a social network. Its pretty early days, but we developed the program last year specifically for the Moreton Bay area of SEQ. The course includes modules both on reef ecology, RCA and interpretive techniques on how to engage different audiences. We trained 29 volunteers through 2 one day workshops last year, and received positive feedback at all levels. Participants indicated that the workshop increased their knowledge on: Subtropical reefs (85%), Reef threats (82%), Individual actions that can protect reefs (93%). Post workshop confidence scores also increased for discussing reef health issues and motivating peers to act on reef conservation. Volunteers have reached out to more than 10,000 people at 20 events since August, ranging from music festivals to indigenous cultural festivals. It also helped to solidify our collaborative network, as we invited partners to contribute educational materials to the educational kit used by our Ambassadors. This helped us communicate catchment to reef concepts without re-inventing wheels and offered an opportunity for exposure for our partners. This ranged from sharing activities from other coastal and marine citizen science projects to distributing information on zoning for Queensland Parks and Wildlife. Spurred on by this success, and fortified by the highlighted need for quality science communications around the recent global coral bleaching event, we’re really looking forward to expanding this initiative.

The support from our dedicated volunteers, partners and supporters make it all possible. Thanks! Thanks to Karsten & David who submitted this session on citizen science at the conference.

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