Eye on the Reef weekly monitoring training manual: a complete guide to monitoring your site

Abstract

The Eye on the Reef is the largest tourism-driven coral reef monitoring program of its kind. Since its inception, the program has continued to expand, involving operators based in Port Douglas, Cairns, Townsville, the Whitsundays and southern Great Barrier Reef (Reef). The program was developed in the 1990s with the specific goal of documenting observations made by marine tourism staff who work on the Reef every day. Tourism operators are some of our most important partners in monitoring the health of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They know their sites well and can collect long-term data that’s invaluable for research and management in assessing the long-term conditions of the Reef. The program has been made possible through a three-way partnership between the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the marine tourism industry and the Reef research community. This program is vital at a time when the Reef’s health is under pressure from threats such as declining water quality and climate change.