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Coral reef restoration is gaining considerable momentum globally in response to climate change and other anthropogenic impacts on coral reefs. In Australia, as part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), a range of unconventional interventions are currently being investigated to help the Great Barrier Reef resist, repair and recover from climate change. Many of these interventions are based on innovative approaches, such as assisted evolution. The regulatory environment is likely to be critical in determining the feasibility and viability of reef restoration and adaptation interventions. It influences what, where and how to restore, who should be responsible for, engaged in, and benefit from restoration. This study explores the regulatory implications of proposed restoration and adaptation interventions in the context of the Great Barrier Reef. This includes mapping the existing regulatory and governance landscape, establishing an approach to account for regulatory requirements of restoration and adaptation interventions, and examining regulatory issues associated with their development and deployment. The study also scopes administrative capacity; i.e., the capacity of regulators in terms of resources and skills required to assess novel risks and impacts of reef restoration and adaptation interventions. It provides important insights that may prove useful for other jurisdictions, where ecosystem restoration and adaptation has become an imperative under a fast-changing climate.

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR), located off the coast of Queensland, Australia, is a UNESCO1 World Heritage site, one of the seven natural wonders of the world and the world’s largest living structure. Spanning 2300 km, it has more than 450 species of corals, 1600 types of fish, and is one of the world’s unique and most biodiverse environments (AIMS 2018). It is estimated that the GBR supports more than 64,000 jobs and contributes more than AU $6.4B/yr to the Australian economy (Deloitte 2017). However, the unprecedented back-to-back bleaching events of 2016 and 2017 led to widespread mortality of shallow water corals (Hughes et al. 2018). While the Great Barrier Reef is still resilient, the projected increase in sea temperatures, forecasts for more frequent coral bleaching, continued outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) and increasing intensity and frequency of cyclones puts the Great Barrier Reef’s future recovery at high risk. With the relatively recent recognition of a need for urgent activity around GBR coral restoration, the low information base from which we were operating, and the recognised need to learn from the international community on best practice restoration, the first Great Barrier Reef Restoration Symposium (the symposium) was initiated. The symposium brought together restoration practitioners, scientists, engineers, environmental managers, NGOs and industry partners to share experiences, insights and ideas about what worked, what did not, and the knowledge gaps that needed filling in order to help the GBR. The symposium was a collaborative effort between the Tropical Water Quality Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program and the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators. Additional partners included James Cook University, Reef Ecologic and the Reef Restoration Foundation.

Coral reef ecosystems are under increasing pressure from local and regional stressors and a changing climate. Current management focuses on reducing stressors to allow for natural recovery, but in many areas where coral reefs are damaged, natural recovery can be restricted, delayed or interrupted because of unstable, unconsolidated coral fragments, or rubble. Rubble fields are a natural component of coral reefs, but repeated or high-magnitude disturbances can prevent natural cementation and consolidation processes, so that coral recruits fail to survive. A suite of interventions have been used to target this issue globally, such as using mesh to stabilise rubble, removing the rubble to reveal hard substrate and deploying rocks or other hard substrates over the rubble to facilitate recruit survival. Small, modular structures can be used at multiple scales, with or without attached coral fragments, to create structural complexity and settlement surfaces. However, these can introduce foreign materials to the reef, and a limited understanding of natural recovery processes exists for the potential of this type of active intervention to successfully restore local coral reef structure. This review synthesises available knowledge about the ecological role of coral rubble, natural coral recolonisation and recovery rates and the potential benefits and risks associated with active interventions in this rapidly evolving field. Fundamental knowledge gaps include baseline levels of rubble, the structural complexity of reef habitats in space and time, natural rubble consolidation processes and the risks associated with each intervention method. Any restoration intervention needs to be underpinned by risk assessment, and the decision to repair rubble fields must arise from an understanding of when and where unconsolidated substrate and lack of structure impair natural reef recovery and ecological function. Monitoring is necessary to ascertain the success or failure of the intervention and impacts of potential risks, but there is a strong need to specify desired outcomes, the spatial and temporal context and indicators to be measured. With a focus on the Great Barrier Reef, we synthesise the techniques, successes and failures associated with rubble stabilisation and the use of small structures, review monitoring methods and indicators, and provide recommendations to ensure that we learn from past projects.

[Extract:] Across the Asia and Pacific region dedicated environment journalists are a rarity. With the exception of Australia and New Zealand, environment beats, locally called rounds, are no longer a newsroom luxury. Editors, journalists, and educators turn to conservation groups and environment non-government organizations to fill the gaps in science knowledge and longer-form investigative pieces. Across the region, climate change copy and environmental stories are subsumed into health, science, and general news rounds. From Fiji to Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Malaysia, and Indonesia, journalists face scarce resources, remote terrain, political bias, government shut outs, and a desperate need for more scientific and environmental journalism training.

[Extract:] Australian and New Zealand environmental journalism differs over the political will to address climate change. While Australia’s conservative Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, famously held up a large lump of coal up in parliament – declaring don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you…It’s coal! (Hamilton, 2017). Across the ditch in New Zealand, Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asserts climate change “is the challenge that defines my generation…my generation’s nuclear free moment” (Trevett, 2017). The political shenanigans that are Australia’s climate policy means journalists, and especially environmental journalists, need a strong working knowledge of both the environmental and political landscapes. While New Zealand increasingly engages in the indigenous and Pacific practice of ‘talanoa journalism’ (talking together to find solutions), Australia remains nostalgic for the era of coal.

Accelerating declines in the extent, quality and functioning of the world's marine ecosystems have generated an upsurge in focus on practical solutions, with ecosystem restoration becoming an increasingly attractive mitigation strategy for systems as diverse as coral reefs, mangroves and tidal flats. While restoration is popular because it promises positive outcomes and a return to something approaching unimpacted condition and functioning, it involves substantial public and private investment, both for the initial restoration activity and for on-going maintenance of the restored asset. This investment often affords one big chance to get things right before irretrievable damage is done. As a result, precise, well considered and accountable decision-making is needed to determine the specific focus for restoration, the scale of restoration, the location for deploying restoration activities, and indeed whether or not restoration is necessary or even possible. We explore the environmental/ecological considerations and constraints governing optimal decisions about the nature, location and prioritisation of restoration activities in marine ecosystems, and in particular the constraints on achieving understanding of possible futures and the likelihood of achieving them. We conclude that action must be informed by a context-specific understanding of the historical situation, the current situation, the constraints on change, the range of potential outcome scenarios, and the potential futures envisioned.

Frackman (FM) and Knitting Nannas (KN) are two documentaries about the anti-coal seam gas movement in Australia. Frackman features a former construction worker turned eco-activist, Dayne Pratzky (DP), fighting coal seam gas extraction. Knitting Nannas follows a group of women also protesting fracking. In this article, we set a challenge to environmental adult educationists to expose gender agendas embedded in environmental education documentaries. A scene-by-scene analysis of these two documentaries through a poststructuralist ecofeminist evaluation reveals there are lessons to be learned because of the repetition of gender blindness in FM, whereas KN offers potential solutions for greater inclusivity in environmental education. The article concludes with recommendations for community-based approaches in environmental adult education.

Today’s campaigns to protect the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have parallels with historical campaigns. With hindsight, we can more clearly see the way environmental discourses are socially constructed as well as their outcomes. This is potentially insightful for contemporary environmentalists. Beginning in 1967, the Save the Reef campaign had a thoughtful media strategy and sought to socially construct the GBR as a precious ecosystem that was at risk from exploitation. Histories of this campaign remember environmentalists as a weak, David-like contender in a fight against the powerful Goliath of the Queensland government and extractive industries. Using the historical archives as our primary data source, however, reveals that these memories are overstated and that environmentalists actually enjoyed widespread support. Moreover, we see that the GBR has no explicit ‘opponents’; even those who sought to exploit it came from a position of pragmatic conservationism, believing exploitation and conservation could c...

Climate change is impacting coral reefs now. Recent pan-tropical bleaching events driven by unprecedented global heat waves have shifted the playing field for coral reef management and policy. While best-practice conventional management remains essential, it may no longer be enough to sustain coral reefs under continued climate change. Nor will climate change mitigation be sufficient on its own. Committed warming and projected reef decline means solutions must involve a portfolio of mitigation, best-practice conventional management and coordinated restoration and adaptation measures involving new and perhaps radical interventions, including local and regional cooling and shading, assisted coral evolution, assisted gene flow, and measures to support and enhance coral recruitment. We propose that proactive research and development to expand the reef management toolbox fast but safely, combined with expedient trialling of promising interventions is now urgently needed, whatever emissions trajectory the world follows. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of embracing new interventions in a race against time, including their risks and uncertainties. Ultimately, solutions to the climate challenge for coral reefs will require consideration of what society wants, what can be achieved technically and economically, and what opportunities we have for action in a rapidly closing window. Finding solutions that work for coral reefs and people will require exceptional levels of coordination of science, management and policy, and open engagement with society. It will also require compromise, because reefs will change under climate change despite our best interventions. We argue that being clear about society's priorities, and understanding both the opportunities and risks that come with an expanded toolset, can help us make the most of a challenging situation. We offer a conceptual model to help reef managers frame decision problems and objectives, and to guide effective strategy choices in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

The disposal of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for port expansion at Abbot Point in North Queensland, Australia, has been a contentious issue receiving extensive media coverage. The media has played a key role in representing different risk perceptions, and potentially influencing policy decision-making. This paper identifies different perceptions of risk portrayed by local, regional, interstate and national print media in relation to the dredge spoil issue from January 2013 until February 2014. Media analysis explored the questions: how is ‘risk’ represented, who is linked to different risk perceptions, and how has the media coverage of the issue changed over time? Results show that ‘risk’ to the Great Barrier Reef from the dredge spoil was framed by four main themes: Environmental Disaster, Socio-economic Disaster, Equilibrium and Industrialism. Environmental Disaster was the most prominent overall, and often positioned in opposition to Industrialism. In January 2013 the dredge spoil issue was mainly covered by local sources and focused on risks to local livelihoods and environments. By February 2014 the issue was covered by sources throughout Australia and represented a range of risks to the GBR, and its World Heritage status, in relation to coal mining and port developments. Insights for communication from this analysis include the importance of using clear language that provides exact and solid examples of risks, especially in light of the media's agenda-setting power and with an issue that the general public does not have direct experience.

[Extract] 2011 was the year of uprisings, protest and a revitalised interest in alternative ways of undertaking politics. Protests began with the Arab spring, swiftly followed by the Spanish summer revolution (Indignants movement) and culminated in the autumn Occupy movement, all linked through spatial squares and streets of Cairo, Madrid and New York.

"The London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympics Games will be the 'greenest' games in history" according to the British Government. Since the Sydney games (2000) there is increasingly a conflating between sports and environmentalism. Indeed, a key factor in London's securing of the 2012 games was sustainable development and a green legacy; as it promises to addressing climate change, waste, biodiversity, inclusion and healthy living (LOCO website). This sports/environmental discourse also extends to key corporate partnership of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics games. Today sponsors are reconstructing – or at least representing themselves as ecological. Major sponsors EDF Energy have combined sports and environmentalism to create 'Team Green Britain'. EDF Energy aims to raise awareness of climate change through sports and music events. 'Team Green Britain' applies a sports narrative to environmental discourse. Their logo, a 'green' union jack flag implies both the sense of nationalism associated with mega-events such as the Olympics, and adds an environmental vernacular to its' image. Yet, the green union jack is also the logo of 'Ecotricity' an energy company which invests in renewable sources. Indeed, Ecotricity have two wind turbines close to the Olympic site in Stratford. This form of 'green washing' has been leveled at the Sydney games (Beder 2000) and potentially could impact on London 2012. This paper will deconstruct how sports narratives, such as nationalism, patriotism, social and cultural success, combined with environmental rhetoric represent 'Green Britannia'; and ask if 2012 can truly be the 'greenest games in history'.