Great Barrier Reef Foundation funds first project after controversial $443m grant

The not-for-profit foundation that was awarded a controversial $443.3m grant for the Great Barrier Reef has funded its first project – a research survey that will be carried out by a government agency.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation will announce on Monday that a 25-day health survey of remote parts of the reef by the Australian Institute of Marine Science is the first venture awarded money through the Reef Trust partnership set up by the government last year.

The announcement comes after publication of an official audit last week that found serious failings in departmental processes when the government selected the foundation without a competitive tender.

Researchers from the government agency have set out on the 25-day trip to remote far northern reefs to survey their health and the effect of severe coral bleaching that occurred during the last mass bleaching event in 2017.

The foundation has co-funded the project with a grant to Aims of $574,000. Aims has contributed $833,000 from its own budget toward the trip.

Eighteen scientists and crew are on board the research vessel RV Solander and are surveying more than 20 reefs off Cape York, from Cooktown to north of Cape Grenville, to check for signs of coral recovery since bleaching as a result of high ocean temperatures caused mass coral mortality in 2016 and 2017.

“Reefs in the northern region of the Great Barrier Reef have not been surveyed since late 2016 after a severe coral bleaching event affected the region meaning that the section is long overdue for a health check,” the foundation’s managing director, Anna Marsden, said.

“We don’t currently know the extent of coral loss attributable to the latest bleaching in 2017 or of any other disturbances that have occurred in that time.”

In 2017, not-for-profit group Great Barrier Reef Legacy conducted a 21-day study of 12 reefs between Cape York and Cooktown with 20 scientists and crew after use of a boat and about $200,000 were donated.

Aims said the expeditions were not comparable because the data the government agency collected was part of long term monitoring work it had conducted for the past 35 years.

Up to 23 reefs will be surveyed by manta tow where coral cover and crown-of-thorns starfish numbers are calculated around the reef perimeter.

Eight reefs will have full surveys conducted by manta tow, divers and using baited remote underwater video stations.

Marsden said findings from this survey would be used to guide future monitoring work and the allocation of further funding through the reef grant for climate adaptation work and crown-of-thorns starfish control.

They will also serve as a baseline to understand the health of the reefs before any future bleaching occurs.

Britta Schaffelke, the program director for the Great Barrier Reef research program at Aims, said little was currently understood about the area being surveyed and the scientists would collect data on both the health of the reefs and the fish communities there.

“We’re interested in the longer-term health of the reef and what we’re more interested in is how reefs recover,” she said. “We know in the future bleaching will occur but do we understand how they recover and why do some reefs not recover as quickly as they should be?

“That’s why getting this data is so important.”

Paul Hardisty, the chief executive of Aims, said it was the first time the RV Solander, which has laboratories, flow-through aquariums and high-tech computing and diving facilities, had been used in Queensland waters.

“This expedition is part of Aims’s commitment to survey the current health of the Great Barrier Reef, as it has done every two years for the past 35 years,” he said. “While the situation has eased, there is still the potential for warm sea temperatures to cause coral bleaching.”

Both Labor and the Greens have questioned why the grant was awarded to the foundation instead of funds going directly to the environment department and government agencies such as Aims and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority that work on the reef.

A Senate inquiry has been examining the process behind the reef grant. The Australian National Audit Office’s audit, which was released last week, found the government gave the department just 11 days to find a private organisation to award the funds to and the department chose the foundation as the “obvious” partner after three days.

The audit found the department applied insufficient scrutiny to numerous aspects of the proposal.