Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub
The Hub is an open collaborative network that connects people to share, learn, and pilot new collaborative approaches to care for reefs in the face of climate change.
#Value of a network
Together, we can shape a better future for coral reefs by sharing, learning and collaborating to deliver new scalable and highly impactful projects
The Cairns-Port Douglas region is home to multiple coral rehabilitation and stewardship projects supported by Traditional Owners, scientists, tourism operators and the community who are deeply committed to a healthy and resilient Reef.
The Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub (the Hub) network brings together individuals and organisations that want to learn, share and collaborate to pilot new approaches for assisted coral reef recovery, protection and adaptation that deliver benefits for the local reefs and community in the face of climate change.
#Latest news
Project News ·
Coral monitoring and collaboration at Moore Reef
Project News ·
Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub 2022 Year in Review
#Why a Hub network?
The Reef is an enormous and highly complex system - with both healthy and degraded areas. Reef pressures are growing and the window of time we have to shape a better future for Reefs and Reef communities calls for a more hands-on approach to caring for the Reef.
Well-designed coral protection and rehabilitation activities are one tool to help reef sites of critical value bridge a gap while urgent efforts to address climate change are underway.
As active Reef protection and rehabilitation efforts increase, so does the need for more collaborative, scalable and highly impactful approaches.
The Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub (the Hub) is a pilot project to strengthen and scale ways to deliver this work by growing learning, sharing and collaboration across local partners, projects underway in other regions, and the Reef-wide Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program.
This pilot model is using an action learning approach - working to collaboratively build a network that meets a range of needs, and to learn and adapt as we go.
#Hub Activities
Coordination
Increasing collaborative actions through pilot projects and streamlining ways to support on-ground delivery
Communication
Providing a platform for sharing and learning across Traditional Owners, tourism, government, research, and community to enhance knowledge sharing, trust and action
Connection
Growing pathways to connect a range of types and scales of work to foster impactful techniques & scaling pathways
Capacity
Enabling access to tools and training to build skills and grow capacity for impactful reef recovery actions
#A call for healing
'If there was ever a time for us to come together that time is now.'
The Heart of the Reef—a call for healing developed at a co-design workshop with Traditional Owners and The Great Barrier Reef Foundation in 2021 articulates the deep interconnectedness that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have to Country.
It is an urgent call to action for partners, government and the world to join Traditional Owners in healing the Reef by understanding ‘that healing is about the relationship between Country and its People…one can’t heal without the other’. May we learn from the wisdom they share.
We include the Heart of the Reef statement here to mark our collective respect for Traditional Owners, their voices and their knowledge, past, present and future and a commitment to supporting collaborative approaches to designing and implementing the Hub network. As a network, we aspire to help respond to this call to action by supporting connections between knowledge systems, and by learning together to support holistic management to Reef Country.
#Get involved
Abbi Scott, Hub Coordinator
If you want to get involved, please reach out to the Hub Coordinator: cpdhubcoordinator@jcu.edu.au
#Hub Steering Group
A Steering Group, representative of the diversity of the Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub network and bringing relevant skills and expertise, provides localised strategic leadership to guide the design and operation of the Hub.
Phil Laycock - Independent Chair
Affiliation: PES Consulting
Stewart Lockie - Social Scientist
Affiliation: Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program and The Cairns Institute, JCU
Peppi Iovanella - Tourism
Affiliation: Down Under Cruise and Dive
Neil Mattocks - Reef conservation actions
Affiliation: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Johnny Gaskell - Reef management & industry engagement
Affiliation: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Brian Singleton - Reef Traditional Owner
Affiliations: Dawul Wuru Aboriginal Corporation and Reef Restoration and Adaptation Science Traditional Owner Technical Working Group
Jennifer Loder - Community Partnerships
Affiliations: Great Barrier Reef Foundation
Eric Fisher - Tourism & research
Affiliations: GBR Biology, Reef Cooperative
Ryan Donnelly - NGOs & business models
Affiliations: Reef Restoration Foundation, Terrain NRM
Steering Group Documents
#Strategic & technical support
The Hub relies on strategic and technical advice and support for an action-learning approach with the Reef Restoration and Adaption Program.
Bruce Taylor - Human geographer
CSIRO, RRAP Engagement Subprogram co-lead
Matt Curnock - Social research scientist
CSIRO
Sam Stone-Jovicich - Social research scientist
CSIRO
Credit for top banner photo: Harriet Spark, Grumpy Turtle
The Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub is funded by the partnership between the Australian Government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. The Hub is coordinated by TropWATER at James Cook University and enabled by the partnership's Community Reef Protection and Traditional Owner Reef Protection components, and the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program with a network of local partners.