The Great Barrier Reef supports one of the world’s largest populations of the dugong (Dugong dugon). Dugongs are impacted by indirect pressures such as changes in the status of the seagrass communities on which they depend for food, affecting their growth, fecundity, movements, and mortality; and by direct pressures that cause mortality.
Estuarine systems are unique, placed as they are in the boundary between marine and terrestrial systems. They provide a buffering role between the ebb and flow of fresh water and marine water. They are also important for recreational and commercial activities and help protect human infrastructure from the vagaries of weather and the coast from damaging erosion forces.
Fisheries on the Great Barrier Reef provide an important source of income, nutrition, recreation and cultural development for many communities in Queensland. However fishing can impact the Reef and the communities it supports. Removal of key species, post-release effects on discarded species, fishing of spawning aggregations and illegal fishing have all been identified as risks to reef fish populations.
Effective management of the Great Barrier Reef’s extensive range and diversity of islands requires a sound understanding of past, current and emerging threats to island values. A key challenge to building this understanding is the logistical, and resource challenges and constraints that relate to gathering meaningful information across the vast geographic spread (348,000 square kilometres) of the approximately 1050 islands.
Seagrass meadows are a critical habitat where many vital processes and services occur that contribute towards the health of the Reef. Seagrasses modify their environments to improve environmental conditions on the Reef, and provide a variety of ecosystem services. Monitoring the health of seagrass meadows is critical to maintain the exceptional values of the Reef.
Shorebirds, also known as waders, gather in intertidal areas or on the fringes of freshwater wetlands. There are two major components to current shorebird monitoring in the Great Barrier Reef, each are discussed in the RIMReP report.
Through analysis of existing frameworks and monitoring methods, the Indigenous Heritage Expert Group developed a unique framework, Strong peoples – Strong country, for Traditional Owners to monitor the Great Barrier Reef, and its catchments; and thereby track Traditional Owners’ perceptions of the status of Indigenous heritage, and progress on the Traditional Owner components of the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan.
The physical and chemical environment of the Great Barrier Reef underpins all ecological and human-cultural processes. Reef water quality is also a pressure on many ecological, cultural, social and economic values through a range of physical and chemical processes. As such, understanding the physico-chemical environment is fundamental to many of the information needs and reporting requirements for management of the Reef.
Two species of great whales are commonly encountered on a seasonal basis in the Great Barrier Reef: the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), and the dwarf minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata subsp). The RIMReP report focuses on these two species, acknowledging that many other large and migratory whales utilise the Reef.
