Reef Life Survey makes the underwater visible.

Reef Life Survey - Makes the underwater visible YouTube clip transcript

Reef life survey is a global

collaboration between marine scientists

management agencies and recreational

divers.

A key motivation of RLS is to make the

underwater world visible to the public

and especially to management agencies.

It's about providing the information

needed to better manage the marine

environment and also for scientists to

tackle questions that haven't been able

to be answered before.

So it's about finding the right divers, providing lots

of training and extending the scientific

team. There's a real focus on the detail

and quality of the data. We have a

growing number of locations around

Australia and the world where we're

gathering teams of our RLS divers for

annual monitoring, Rottnest island is a

really good example of this.

We started monitoring it in 2008 with

the support of the Rottnest Island

Authority. I've been monitoring every

year since. A key part of RLS is working

with management agencies. They help

direct where the data are needed most

for their purposes and then we provide

the data to them to help understand the

implications their management actions

better.

My name is Dr Tom Holmes and I

coordinate the marine monitoring program

through the marine science program.

Ecological programs generally speaking

have fairly tight budgetary constraints,

in what they tend they can operate, so ways

to get the biggest bang for your

buck in terms of what you're doing

really come into play.

RLS is an incredibly important tool,

particularly through strategies such as

adaptive management. You know long term

data sets play a very important role in

informing our management decisions that

we make. The Western Australian coast is

an incredibly diverse coastline and it covers a

massive area. Some of the techniques

that are used are used on the national

and international scale.

So the scale at which they operate over here in Western

Australia really fits in beautifully. It

provides information that's very

complementary. The inclusion of

scientists and researchers within ReefLifeSurvey

really places the emphasis on

quality control.

Having those people

involved in there really adds that

filter and helps process the data that comes

out the other side. It leaves us with a

whole lot more confidence in what the

information is actually telling us.

This is like my home turf. I have dived here quite

a lot. My name's Dan Holmes I've been

volunteering with the Reef Life survey

foundation for 10 years now. RLS is a huge

part of my life now. There's probably not a

week that goes by where I'm not involved

in something to do with RLS. What I

got out of it most at the beginning was

was that connection with the environment

and actually beginning to understand

what was happening around me.

We had a marine heatwave back in 2010

and 2011 and we saw a big a ecological

change here. A lot of fishes were lost

but it was really interesting to be here

at that period of time and see that

change, not just in terms of what I could

physically see when I was diving, but

the data that was coming out of the

program would actually show it in a

quantitative way.

[Music]

I cannot imagine I'd still be in the

program ten years on unless I knew that

my daughter was going to be contributing

to a significant meaningful outcome in

terms of managing and conserving the

environment

RLS has kind of facilitated a network of

citizen scientists that are becoming

professional scientists.

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