Golden opportunity for Gold Coast reefs

MEDIA RELEASE OCTOBER 14, 2011    
www.reefcheckaustralia.org 1


Volunteer reef health monitoring organisation, Reef Check Australia, has kicked off their monitoring survey season in South East Queensland with support from locally-based AirAsia! Reef Check volunteer divers jumped in at Palm Beach Reef and Narrowneck artificial reef this week as the first official dives of the 2011 survey season.


“It’s amazing to dive with such vibrant and diverse marine life and then surface to see the bustling city skyline along the coast,” says, Reef Check Australia’s General Manager, Jennifer Loder. “In half a day we saw breaching whales, dozens of colourful nudibranchs, resting wobbegongs and a multitude of fish. Reef Check programs can help to ensure that there are healthy reef & ocean habitats to support such amazing marine life.”


Over the next several months, Reef Check survey teams will visit reef sites stretching from the Gold Coast to the Sunshine Coast, monitoring reef composition, recording abundance of key fish and invertebrates and documenting reef impacts such as bleaching, coral disease or marine debris. Reef Check’s globally-standardised scientific protocols are currently implemented in more than 90 locations around the world, establishing a unique opportunity to compare reef health around the world.


All Reef Check Australia data is available, free-of-charge, to members of the public who want to learn more about their favourite local reefs via the Reef Check Australia Reef Health Database. Data is also provided to government agencies, natural resource managers and industry to assist in reef management efforts, helping to compliment government monitoring efforts and fill gaps in reef health monitoring data.


More than a dozen local dive operators support Reef Check’s monitoring efforts by providing dive trips to monitoring sites around the South East Queensland area at reduced rates. Local businesses, such as AirAsia, are now showing their support for the community-based initiative through Reef Check Australia’s Adopt a Reef program. “Queensland's Gold Coast was the very first destination of AirAsia's long haul carrier AirAsia X, it is a community we have always had a strong affinity with and we feel it only fitting to further extend our support of the Gold Coast community beyond its shoreline to its local marine wildlife as well,” says Stuart Myerscough, AirAsia’s Marketing Manager.


Jennifer Loder adds, “Reef Check Australia is striving to build awareness, appreciation and protection of rocky reefs, like Palm Beach Reef, right here on our doorstep in SEQ; they really are pretty special. Local partnerships are essential to the success of our program, so we’re grateful that AirAsia is supporting these efforts as our first Adopt a Reef Corporate Giving Program sponsor.”


Find out more about getting involved in a volunteer training course, the Adopt a Reef program or other ways to protect reef and ocean habitats, visit www.reefcheckaustralia.org.
For additional information and high resolution images, contact:
Jennifer Loder, General Manager at jenn@reefcheckaustralia.org or 0402284681.


www.ausmepa.org.au

AUSMEPA enters the PRIMEZONE portal

AUSMEPA has now entered the primezone education portal. It is about time for you to explore it here


Primezone provides teachers with single-point access to a range of primary industries education resources here. This website is an initiative of the Primary Industries Education Foundation, a national not-for-profit company with government, industry and education membership.

AUSMEPA resources can be found at each of the designated age levels and you'll find some excellent inspiration from many of the other resources on these pages.


1. School resources


2. Resources for Foundation Year-Year 2

3. Resources for Years 3-4


4. Resources for Years 5-6

5. Resources for Years 7-8

6. Resources for Years 9-10

7. Resources for Years 11-12

Many thanks to primezone for putting together this wonderful educational resource.

www.ausmepa.org.au

PLANET ARK - helping everyone to make a difference

About Planet Ark's Environmental Campaigns (from their website here)

Planet Ark designs its campaigns so you can make a difference. Whether through recycling more, planting trees for treeday or changing to energy efficient lightglobes, small changes to individual behaviour add up to big savings for the environment.

Most of our campaigns have their own sites which provide detailed information, and focus on the ways you can make a difference. See the campaign pages fo a summary of each campaign and links to the campaign sites.

Aluminium Cans

Australians currently recycle over 2 billion aluminium cans each year. Find out more about Aluminium Cans and how you can help our environment

Business Recycling

The Business Recycling website is designed to make it easy for businesses, especially small and medium sized businesses, to find recycling services in their area.

Carbon Reduction Label

Planet Ark and the Carbon Trust have launched the Carbon Reduction Label in Australia. Planet Ark is working with businesses wanting to undertake carbon footprinting and labelling of their product.

'Cartridges 4 Planet Ark'

Australians send 34 printer cartridges to landfill every minute. We are determined to make our landfills the biggest loser by urging Australians to deprive their garbage bins of electronic waste.

Festive Recycling

Between Christmas, New Year and Australia Day Australians produce more recycling than any other time of the year. Which is why Planet Ark and Australia Post encouraging everyone to have a clean and green festive period.

National Recycling Week

Recycling aids in the fight against global warming by reducing the amount of new materials we use to sustain out lifestyle.

National Tree Day

National Tree Day, proudly sponsored by Toyota, is Australia's biggest community tree-planting event.

Make It Wood - Do Your World Some Good

When sourced responsibly, wood can play a big part in helping tackle climate change by storing carbon and through reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Make It Wood - Do Your World Some Good explains why and highlights how to choose the right wood.

Palm Oil Free

Palm Oil Free is Planet Ark's campaign to help stop deforestation in South East-Asia due to palm oil plantations, which are destroying the habit of the amazing Sumatran and Bornean orangutans as well as many other incredible birds, animals, plants and critters.

'PaperCutz 4 Planet Ark'

'PaperCutz 4 Planet Ark' aims to encourage people to switch from paper-based to electronic communications to save water, energy and resources used in paper production and distribution, as well as the solid waste and greenhouse gases emitted in the process.

Plastic Bag Reduction

Planet Ark led the National Plastic Bag Reduction Campaign in Australia from 2002 to 2005. Since then millions of Australians have embraced the use of reusable bags as part of their regular shopping habits.

RecyclingNearYou

RecyclingNearYou is your one stop shop for local recycling information.

Climate Change

While climate change may seem insurmountable the solutions don't necessarily have to involve radical changes to our lives, but rather, are achievable by working smarter and using our resources more efficiently.

www.ausmepa.org.au

One last chance to save mankind - opinion - 23 January 2009 - New Scientist

One last chance to save mankind - opinion - 23 January 2009 - New Scientist

The New Scientist interviewed James Lovelock and he has an interesting take.

"James Lovelock is a British chemist, inventor and environmentalist. He is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere."

During the interview he says:

"We have the example of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event 55 million years ago. About the same amount of CO2 was put into the atmosphere as we are putting in and temperatures rocketed by about 5 °C over about 20,000 years."

"There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast."

"Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning."

You can read this article at http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?page=1

Impacts of Climate Change Aninmations from GBRMPA

The impacts of climate change from GBRMPA on Vimeo.

What is climate change? from GBRMPA on Vimeo.

Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef from GBRMPA on Vimeo.