The Great Barrier Reef is the most extensive coral reef ecosystem in the world, inscribed on the World Heritage List for outstanding ecological value that is recognised across Australia and around the world. The Great Barrier Reef holds immense value, especially for the Traditional Owners of Australia with rights over Great Barrier Reef sea country, underpins local livelihoods, and contributes more than $6 billion a year to the national economy. Like coral reefs around the world, the Great Barrier Reef is threatened by climate change. Increasing sea temperatures leading to coral bleaching, ocean acidification and increasingly frequent and severe weather events, are the most significant threats to the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

The Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program is the world’s largest effort to help an entire ecosystem survive, adapt to, and recover from climate change, bringing together over 200 scientists and engineers to conduct the technological, ecological and social research to underpin the design and delivery of an effective and equitable Reef-wide restoration and adaptation solution. Novel technological interventions, such as coral aquaculture and assisted evolution to build heat resilient coral, rubble stabilisation, and cooling and shading, are being developed and trialled for deployment across the Great Barrier Reef.

As well as being a significant scientific and engineering challenge, the transition to human-assisted reef adaptation unearths a multitude of complex political, social, economic and cultural challenges. This session brings together a group of scientists working to address some of the challenges around how to meaningfully engage with Reef Traditional Owners, stakeholders, the Australian public, as well as the engineers, scientists and program managers within the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program to embed participatory and just approaches into the design and delivery of novel adaptation and restoration interventions.

Session Description:

This dialogue will consist of a series of short presentations interspersed with multiple opportunities for open audience discussion on some of the challenges in undertaking collaborative, legitimate and meaningful forms of engagement for the purpose of transitioning towards a human-assisted future for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) that is sustainable, inclusive, and just. The format will be designed to enhance audience participation around the challenges raised through a series of six short (5 minute) presentations. Half of the time (30 minutes) will be allocated to open conversation, moderated by our facilitator.