Adoption of coral propagation and out-planting via the tourism industry to advance site stewardship on the northern Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

Coral propagation via nurseries and out-planting practices has increased worldwide in the last decade to improve stakeholder-led stewardship aimed at retaining or rehabilitating local reef site health. Until 2017/18, stewardship activities by the tourism industry on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been restricted to operations such as corallivore control and environmentally responsible operations. However, back-to-back bleaching events in 2016/17 catalysed implementation of coral propagation at “high-value” tourism sites, with the goal to overcome conventional cost-efficiency limitations associated with growing and re-planting (out-planting) coral via a novel tourism-research partnership model, “Coral Nurture Program” (CNP) in Far North Queensland. Staged implementation across partners (Phase 1 – “development” via 1 operator; Phase 2 – “adoption” via 4 further operators) resulted in establishment of 72 coral nurseries stocked with >4500 coral fragments from >36 species and out-planting of 21,020 coral fragments of >29 species using a rapid deployment device (Coralclip®). Key elements to the success of CNP were identified through regular partner meetings, and included utilising complimentary expertise, resources and knowledge essential to the continued improvement of best practice and standard operating procedures from both researchers and operators. Here, we specifically examine activity of the CNP from its inception (February 2018) until December 2020, to compare and evaluate how collective propogation by multiple tourism operators coupled with research validation can collaboratively enhance site stewardship at scale across GBR high-value tourism sites. Similarities are drawn between our CNP model and other stewardship-based management models, including adherence to a “code of operation” that ensures trust and equitability across partners. Novel aspects driving CNP success include the flexibility in adoption of CNP workflows to suit individual business preferences (e.g.conducting activity during normal day to day tourism operations versus tourism downturns (e.g. COVID-19)), and use of research to guide objective improvements in site (operator)-specific effectiveness of out-planting and nursery success. In doing so, we use CNP to identify how our tourism-research coral propagation approach could aid stewardship-based management of other reefs where economies are reliant on tourism.