Theme 3 'Managing for Resilient Tropical Systems'

Program 12 will have four projects designed to assist environmental managers, industry and Indigenous and community groups to manage the Wet Tropics bioregion. This is a complex and often highly contested landscape with many competing interests.

Program 11 will have two projects designed to assist key decision makers in the Torres Strait community to build a resilient future based on sustainable environmental use. The program will deliver information on the value of ecosystem services underpinning Torres Strait livelihoods within the cultural frame of the region. The program will deliver information on resource sharing with Treaty Villages in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and improved methodologies to support emerging sustainable industries in the region.

Program 10 will have two projects designed to capture social and economic information from Great Barrier Reef industries and coastal communities. One will be the start of a long-term compilation and tracking of essential socio-economic indicators to detect spatial and temporal trends in human uses of the region and to monitor variations in economic activity. Both will be useful in forecasting trends and providing the human dimension to scenario planning by coastal managers.

Program 9 will have four projects designed to develop new tools for reef managers. One project will develop methodology to allow managers to evaluate alternative management scenarios and choose between options. It will focus on tools to assist in the management of the inshore region for biodiversity outcomes, particularly inshore multi-species fisheries management, using a stakeholder driven approach.

Program 8 has three inter-linked projects that will test the effectiveness of spatial management arrangements (differential use zones) for conserving exploited fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. One project will compare the abundance of fish, corals, and the incidence of coral disease between fringing reefs in the coastal zone that have been closed to fishing at different times in the past with adjacent areas that remain in use by the recreational fishing sector.