Torres Strait

The success of the NERP TE Hub will, in part, be due to how information developed during the life of the Hub helps facilitate real improvements in sustaining the ecosystems of the Great Barrier Reef, the Wet Tropics rainforests and the Torres Strait regions. Accordingly, the Hub's research activities will be supported by a substantial knowledge brokering, communication and engagement framework. There are two primary outputs for knowledge brokering and communication.

Torres Strait has long been recognised as a bridge into Australia and there has been a focus on both human and wildlife diseases and their presence in the area in the past.  Zoonoses, or diseases borne by animals, are of increasing concern to Australia. These diseases represent serious threats to human health, to our agriculture and to our biodiversity. In this project we will be focusing on improved methodologies for detection of disease incursions in Torres Strait and options to mitigate the establishment and the persistence of serious diseases of wildlife in the region. 

Through participatory scenario planning with Torres Strait and Papua New Guinean communities and stakeholders, informed by integrated ecosystem and climate modelling, this project aims to explore potential future scenarios for the region, and identify ‘best bet’ strategies to protect livelihoods and achieve sustainable economic development. This will respond in part to the 2010 Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee Inquiry, which recommended an analysis of the vulnerability of the Torres Strait to climate change and other future pressures.

An understanding of the status of water quality in Torres Strait and its influence on marine foods, human health, marine ecosystems and ecological processes in the Strait is important.

Program 11 will have two projects designed to assist key decision makers in the Torres Strait community to build a resilient future based on sustainable environmental use. The program will deliver information on the value of ecosystem services underpinning Torres Strait livelihoods within the cultural frame of the region. The program will deliver information on resource sharing with Treaty Villages in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and improved methodologies to support emerging sustainable industries in the region.

Program 4 will have three projects assessing risks to biodiversity from current water quality in the inshore Great Barrier Reef and a desktop hazard study for water quality outlook in the Torres Strait.

The reefs of Torres Strait are threatened by a variety of local and global agents: notably climate change (widespread coral bleaching was recorded for the first time in 2010), but also by the coral feeding crown-of-thorns starfish and increasing levels of coral diseases.

Torres Strait islands have extensive mangrove margins and several islands (e.g. Saibai, Boigu) are predominantly made up of intertidal swamps (including mangroves, tidal saltpans and salt marsh).  Despite this, there has been no thorough assessment of the diversity, extent and health of mangrove ecosystems there.  Establishing the baseline of mangrove status and condition is important, especially as many islands are low lying and the predictions of sea level rise and increased storm surge frequency mean that mangroves are among the most threatened ecological communities in Torres Strait.

Project 2.1 will use monitoring, genetics, state-of-the-art tracking and remote sensing to develop, (a) an understanding of the status of marine turtles, (b) a detailed understanding of turtle and dugong spatial ecology, plus the threats to these populations, and (c) dugong population assessments. The project will both improve stakeholder understanding, capacity and skills to better manage priority species and provide valuable data that is useable and understandable to those making decisions regarding turtle and dugongs.

Program 2 will have three projects assessing the condition and trend of Torres Strait assets.

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