History

Cooloola Coastcare has been involved in Seagrass Monitoring in the Great Sandy Straits and Tin Can Inlet since 1988. This page is a collection of the history of some of the Seagrass Monitoring projects over that time.

Great Sandy Strait Seagrass Monitoring 2015-2018 funded by the Burnett Mary Regional Group

Great Sandy Straits (GSS) seagrass monitoring was established in 1988 and this project has continued this annual monitoring of seagrass and stimulated greater community engagement from townships along the GSS. This project raised community awareness about seagrass in the marine environment. The data recorded provides an overview of seagrass health and extent in the GSS and provides real data to enable protection and catchment management. Field monitoring occurred from September 2015 - Dec 2017 on 17 sites at 9 locations in the Great Sandy Straits (GSS).

Engaging the community to participate in Great Sandy Strait seagrass monitoring created increased and focused awareness of the local marine environment, its health and seasonable variability. This is important for the community to gain an understanding of the dynamic nature of estuarine shorelines and sandflats for improved management / governance in the long term.

Great Sandy Strait SeagrassWatch Training and Seagrass & Marine Fauna Monitoring funded by Caring for our Country Community Action Grants, 2010.

The project contributed towards the monitoring & assessment of sediment & nutrients and observations/recordings of marine fauna in the Great Sandy Marine Park/Ramsar Wetland area, thereby delivering actions that helped sustain its environmental values. The project specifically increased community participation in protecting the coastal environment by building community capacity through delivery of training by the internationally known organisation, Seagrass-Watch (hq@seagrasswatch.org).

For ongoing management of the marine park and associated marine resources, continued support for SeagrassWatch is essential. Data was also be collected on marine fauna activity for Wildnet.

2011 - 2012 Activities

1. Coordinate 2 training days with Seagrass-Watch at Boonooroo, Qld.

2. Coastguard, Coastcare, SSSMEG, GSF&FW, others, participate in Training and gain Level 1 qualifications in April 2011.

3. Monitoring of established sites on an annual, bi-annual & quarterly schedule from May 2011-May 2012 involving 3 separate teams.

4. Data collected, collated and forwarded to Seagrass-Watch HQ on an annual, bi-annual & quarterly preestablished schedule May 2011-12.

5. At least 2 marine fauna patrols completed winter/spring turtle mating season & wildnet data recorded & forwarded to BMRG.