Standard operational procedure : video-monitoring of sessile benthic communities : a report to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

Information on changes in the abundance and distribution of organisms in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is essential for managers and scientists who wish to understand the ecological processes occurring on the reef and how these processes may be affected by human activities. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) have jointly developed a strategy for the monitoring of long-term, regional changes in major biota and nutrients in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The program was established with two broadscale objectives: To detect and quantify major changes through time in the distribution and abundance of corals (and other dominant organisms), fishes, nutrients, and the crown-of-thorns starfish. 2 To provide managers (and other decision-makers) with information that is pertinent to assessing the 'health' of the Great Barrier Reef

State of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area Workshop : proceedings of a technical workshop held in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, 27-29 November 1995

State of the Environment Reporting is increasingly being seen as an important part of environmental management and is required at the national level as well as within several states. Although there are or have been, a number of long-standing and quite comprehensive monitoring and assessment programs on the Great Barrier Reef, the results of many of these programs have never been summarised in a management context and no overall summary of all of these programs has ever been attempted

Research priorities for the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the World Heritage Area 2001

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, comprising a huge complex of approximately 2900 reefs, 900 islands and other ecosystems (including estuaries, seagrass beds, and soft bottom communities). The GBR supports a high degree of biological diversity due to the variety of ecosystems present and the huge size of the area (>343 500km2). Due to its national and international importance, the Great Barrier Reef is also the world’s largest Marine Park and World Heritage Area

State of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area 1998

Although this report indicates numerous areas where further work is still required, it also demonstrates the breadth and depth of management commitnlent to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area undertaken by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments. In the context of other World Heritage Areas and other major coral reef systems, the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area compares very favourably in terms of general condition and management response

Aspects of the behaviour and ecology of Red Sea and Indian Ocean triggerfishes (Balistidae)

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX179737 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Reconstructing Reefs: Qualitative Methods and the Environmental History of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Given recent concerns about the degradation of coral reef\ud ecosystems world-wide, we investigated the environmental history of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia using qualitative methods. In particular,we used archival and oral history sources to reconstruct changes in coral reefs, islands and marine wildlife species for the period 1860–1970 and we evaluated the potential of qualitative methods to inform marine environmental research. Here, we argue that qualitative research offers a valuable means of reconstructing environmental changes, their drivers and their historical contexts. However, we found that qualitative methods also had important limitations. Hence we identify strategies for addressing those challenges and we suggest criteria for ensuring the accuracy and rigor of qualitative sources in marine environmental research. Overall, we argue that qualitative methods offer distinctive\ud insights into the environmental history of the Great Barrier Reef, and that qualitative reconstructions can act as important triggers for conservation of marine ecosystems