Download: GBRMPA intervention consultation_ACRS comments

The ACRS acknowledges that the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is in decline and that interventions can potentially support and build resilience by maintaining key functions, habitats and species of this ecosystem. Given the pace of environmental change and the rapid adoption of restoration-based interventions to maintain or improve the condition of other habitats(including reef connected systems such as mangroves and terrestrial catchments), we agree that an informed policy to help guide the need to explore –and potentially implement –what approaches can work at different scales is much needed and extremely timely.

We encourage our members and interested parties to download the linked submission document above, which raises broad principles regarding interventions before specifically addressing some of the numbered points raised in the draft policy. Overall, we broadly support the draft policy and largely agree with the rationale for the perceived need for interventions, but have detailed several areas where we feel improvements can be made.

We would like to thank councillors Dave Suggett, Catheline Froehlich, Anna Scott, Carrie Sims, Gerard Ricardo, Greg Torda,Graeme Cumming and Brett Lewis for assistance in the preparation of this submission.