One of the core activities of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP) is the formation of geographically based community panels to explore and discuss specific reef interventions (i.e., new technologies to help the reef) being investigated by the Program
The aim of establishing community panels is to explore a new way of involving community members in a longer-term and deeper discussion with scientists and reef managers about proposed novel reef interventions for the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The panels seek to draw on diverse community perspectives and aspirations for the Reef and its management.
The first of these panels, the Townsville Community Panel on Novel Reef Interventions for the Great Barrier Reef, ran from July 2022 – May 2023, and brought together 13 community members from the broader region who applied to a call for Expressions of Interest. The panel focused on technologies being researched and developed through the Cooling and Shading, Enhanced Corals and Treatments, Coral Aquaculture and Deployment Sub-Programs. The panel members met in five one-day workshops and also participated in several interim virtual meetings and tours to learn more about the reef intervention research. Scientists leading the focal interventions were actively engaged in the panel meetings.
Learnings from this panel have now informed the design of a second panel in the Cairns-Port Douglas Region which will commence in early 2024 and will run for approximately 6 months.
