Resources

The Conversation

28 May 2013

When the Great Barrier Reef was first placed on the World Heritage List in 1981, it was recognised as being home to a huge diversity of species, many of them threatened. Conserving the reef’s habitats would therefore be a great way to protect many different species all at the same time.

Naturally, some of these thousands of species have attracted more attention than others. Generally these are large animals with high tourism value – often called the “charismatic megafauna” – such as marine mammals, turtles, sea snakes, sharks, rays and seabirds. Many of these species are listed as either threatened or migratory under Australia’s environmental legislation. Read more

 

In the following audio clips, Dr Nadine Marshall talks about the forthcoming scientific survey "What does the Great Barrier Reef mean to you?"

The large scale survey is going to investigate people's perceptions for the whole of the Great Barrier Reef, covering marine tourism, traditional owners, ports and shipping, aquaculture, mining, residents and coastal communities.

a)  An opportunity to work with policay makers

b)  A home for social and economic research data

The Conversation

11 September 2013

I’ve heard that we should stop talking about “pure” science and “applied” science; that we should only be talking about “good” science and “bad” science. Last year, CSIRO Chief Executive Megan Clark said as much during question time at her National Press Club address, and this year I heard it recommended again at the Universities Australia Conference. So let’s talk good and bad. Read more

 

Can you really put a figure on what people value about the Great Barrier Reef? How do you attach a price to intrinsic natural beauty? And, how do you understand how external socioeconomic pressures affect these values? These are the questions that Professor Natalie Stoeckl and her team from JCU and CSIRO are addressing within NERP TE Hub project 10.2. Pardon the cliché but beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and it is to a large group of these that the team has gone for answers to the above questions.

So far 1500 residents from 106 different postcodes along the GBR coast and 2800 tourists from Port Douglas to Yepoon have been asked questions on the things they value about the GBR. Two hundred of the tourist questionnaires were in Japanese; with the same number in Chinese.

Natalie and her team are finding that residents rate the ‘free’ things associated with the GBR World Heritage Area (i.e. little rubbish and clear water; spending time on beaches or being able to go fishing) as most important to overall quality of life; ahead of jobs and incomes. Most residents value the environment, feeling that significant degradation (i.e. loss of healthy coral reefs, ocean water changing from clear to turbid; twice as much rubbish on beaches) would have a more significant and negative effect on their overall quality of life than a 20% increase in local prices. Residents were also willing to pay to help ‘fix’ some of the threats to the reef, but only if other Australians paid as well.

The tourist perspective was similar, leading the team to conclude that if water clarity deteriorated, the region could lose substantial tourism revenues, with fewer visitors and/or shorter visits, so less tourist spending.

The conclusion so far, as Professor Stoeckl says, is: “Across both samples, environmental factors were considered to be more important to overall quality of life for residents, or as an attractant to the region for tourists, than economic factors such as ability to earn money from regional industries, and/or having high quality accommodation and ‘prices to match budget’”. The work continues and Professor Stoeckl cautions that numbers may change as more data comes in.

For further information contact: natalie.stoeckl@jcu.edu.au

Project: 10.2 Socio-economic systems and reef resilience