Identification and monitoring of habitats critical to the GBRWHA in or adjacent to shipping lanes and coastal ports (B1.3)

Task leader: Dr Michael Rasheed, Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries .

Task associate: Ms Simona Trimarchi, Ports Corporation Queensland.

The critical surveys and monitoring programs for Queensland ports continues to expand. There are now eight Queensland ports that are included in this task, Mourilyan, Cairns, Thursday Island, Mackay, Karumba, Weipa, Skardon River and Gladstone. All of these programs have been developed in close consultation with the relevant port authorities and as such receive significant financial contributions from port management agencies.

We have secured approximately $150k in external funding for this financial year from Ports Corporation of Queensland, Mackay Port Authority, Trinity Inlet Waterways, Gladstone Port Authority and Cairns Port Authority.

Port authorities have used results of the monitoring programs extensively in planning and reviewing their port activities. The large spread of sites now being monitored in Queensland has also enabled us to pick up regional scale changes in abundance and distribution of seagrass. This has assisted in separating out broader climatic causes of change from local human induced changes.

The team has developed an excellent reputation within the Ports & Shipping industry for producing high quality and relevant research and monitoring. This reputation has lead to Port Agencies approaching us to design and implement baseline surveys and monitoring programs for their ports. The critical habitats team has continued to work closely with other tasks within CRC Reef including the Introduced Pest Species team (B1.0.3) on joint projects. This further strengthens our position as a leader in port habitat monitoring for Queensland.