Current Projects

Click on any of the below for more information on each of our current projects.

People and Reef Organisations Tackling Environmental Change Together (PROTECT)

The PROTECT project aims to monitor how individuals and community organisations engage in Reef stewardship. It will describe and establish a new monitoring activity for the systematic monitoring of community stewardship activities for Reef Health.

This work is developmental and operational, and involves designing and implementing a new monitoring activity and an accompanying framework for understanding the causal links between stewardship activity and the desired outcomes e.g. to improve Reef health. Our approach recognises the diverse ways that stewardship can be conceptualised and will engage with stewardship practitioners and other end users to inform the design.

Moreton Bay Values

Protecting the diverse values of Moreton Bay and ensuring these values are recognised as an international treasure requires that community members understand and treasure Moreton Bay’s ecological and cultural values, and take action to protect these values for future generations. A critical first step is identifying how community members appreciate Moreton Bay.

This project will assess the degree to which individuals in the wider community understand and appreciate the ecological and cultural heritage of Moreton Bay, and to what degree are they willing to act to protect these values?

Monitoring waterways benefits in SEQ

The Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) is a comprehensive and scientifically robust waterway monitoring program managed by Healthy Land and Water that has monitored and assessed the health and waterway benefits of South East Queensland’s creeks, rivers, estuaries and Moreton Bay. The Waterway Benefits Rating (introduced in 2015) helps to better understand how social and economic values will be affected by changing environmental conditions.

The results are reported annually in the Healthy Land & Water Report Card. The purpose of including the social indicators in the Report Card is to help encourage individuals, industry, communities of practice and governments to act in ways that improve or sustain the condition of catchments and the services they provide.

Environmental Stewardship

Volunteers, or stewards, are a vital and necessary part of the achievement of many pro-environmental group’s objectives.

The aim of this project is to identify the key characteristics of volunteers that maintain their participation in pro-environmental stewardship programs with Australian volunteer organisations. These insights that can be used to inform future program design to achieve lasting and wide scale positive impacts for the environment as well as the volunteers.

Human-Wildlife Interactions

Human-wildlife interactions in shoreline areas, such as the North Shore of the lower Maroochy River on the Sunshine Coast, can have a significant negative impact on shoreline biodiversity (e.g., off-leash domestic dogs are known to chase migratory, shoreline birds). Currently, no data is available on visitors to the area and their perceptions of management strategies for minimising human-wildlife impacts. This projects aims to gain a better understanding of a) patterns of use of this area, b) user preferences about strategies to reduce impacts, and c) factors that influence preferences, and provide recommendations for developing effective behaviour change strategies that target and appeal to visitors to the area.