A multi-stakeholder approach to delivering resilience through coastal and island restoration on the Great Barrier Reef

The Reef Islands Initiative is the largest coastal rehabilitation projects of its kind in the southern hemisphere – bringing together scientists, Traditional Owners, local tourism leaders, governments and the community to protect and restore a network of critical island habitats along the length of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Underway since 2015, the program is working across multiple habitats on the coastal mainland and islands to pilot and scale terrestrial and marine restoration techniques with the aim to enhance the resilience of these biodiversity bright spots and to build local capacity for long-term community-led ecosystem stewardship.

 

To date the program has doubled the nesting area for Green Sea Turtles resulting in a projected additional 640,000 turtle hatchlings; a scaled Pisonia Forest revegetation on a heavily disturbed remote coral cay to restore one of the Great Barrier Reef's most critical seabird nesting habitats; building capacity of 500+ volunteers and community stakeholders as coral restoration practitioners using a novel coral restoration technique (coral larvae re-seeding) to develop and test regulatory pathways to assist with scaling.

These projects have been designed and prioritised using best available science and have been delivered using a collaborative place-based model and multitiered governance arrangements to encourage local buy-in and power-sharing to support implementation and legacy. Plus, strategic alignment with regional priorities and Government and regulator support.

In this presentation we will share lessons learned from project design and implementation of marine and terrestrial restoration projects via science-tourism and private-public sector partnership models.