Project 10.2 'Socio-economic systems and reef resilience'

Led by: Professor Natalie Stoeckl, James Cook University

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority seeks to develop a socio-economic monitoring program, but there are a vast number of variables (or ‘indicators’) that could, potentially, be monitored and monitoring is not a costless exercise. So, it is important to ensure that the variables selected for ‘monitoring’, are ones which, (a) provide reliable, relevant information, which (b) measure interactions between sub-systems (e.g. socio-economic and biophysical) and which (c) are clearly associated with the Authority’s primary goal of protecting the Reef, i.e. of promoting reef resilience.

This project will, therefore, test the relationship between several socio-economic variables and other variables that are likely to be associated with reef resilience. It will generate information that is useful, whilst also contributing to the development of the Authority’s socio-economic monitoring program.

Project objectives at a glance

This project has several key objectives, namely to:

Improve our understanding of a diverse range of stakeholder views on the relative ‘value’ of the different goods and services provided by the reef;
Improve our understanding of the relative importance of different attributes of reef health to a range of different types of tourists;
Improve our understanding of the way in which external socio-economic pressures (such as rising commodity prices) have, historically, affected water quality and thus (indirectly) reef resilience;
Continue the long term tourism monitoring work started by Prideaux in MTSRF;
Improve our ability to assess the relative importance (or ‘value’) of different market and non-market goods and services using both monetary and non-monetary approaches; and
Use insights from all of the above to identify potentially useful indicators and methods for measuring those indicators for long term monitoring.

Specific objectives and intended outputs of this Project are detailed in the NERP TE Hub Multi-Year Research Plan.

Final Report

The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area: its ‘value’ to residents and tourists, and the effect of world prices on it

Project Factsheet

Technical Reports

Tourist Exit Survey Report: February – September 2012 Annual Patterns of Reef and Rainforest Tourism in North Queensland from Exit Surveys Conducted at Cairns Domestic Airport

What do residents and tourists ‘value’ most in the GBRWHA? Project 10.2 Interim report on residential and tourist data collection activities including descriptive data summaries

Result Factsheets

Activities and Preferences of Chinese Visitors to Tropical NQ

Activities and Preferences of Domestic (non-QLD) Visitors to Tropical NQ

Activities and Preferences of Japanese Visitors to Tropical NQ

Activities and Preferences of Queensland Visitors to Tropical NQ