Cooktown (Qld, Australia) : 26-28 March 2009

Cooktown is the northernmost town on the east coast of Australia, located at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland.

Seagrass-Watch HQ conducted a two day (Level 1) workshop in Cooktown (26-27 March) at the River of Gold Motel. The workshop was attended by local QPW/EPA officers, Indigenous rangers and local community.

The field component of the workshop was held at Archer Point. The intertidal monitoring sites are located on a fringing reef platform. The sites are dominated by Halodule uninervis (both wide and narrow leaf varieties), however another five seagrass species are also present in the sites and bay (Halophila ovalis, Cymodocea rotundata, Cymodocea serrulata, Enhalus acoroides, Zostera muelleri ssp. capricorni). Seagrass species composition remained relatively stable over the past 12 months. The site is being monitored as part of the Reef Rescue Marine Monitoring program, which was conducted on 28th March by the team from Seagrass-Watch HQ .

To download the Workshop feedback pdf (CLICK HERE)



	AP1: Archer Point 27 March 2009

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	AP2: Archer Point 28 March 2009

Gladstone (Qld, Australia) : 26-28 March 2009

Last week a team from Seagrass-Watch HQ (Richard Unsworth, Naomi Smith and Sam Hedge) traveled to Gladstone for Seagrass-Watch monitoring at Gladstone Harbour and Reef Rescue monitoring at Rodds Bay.

Some serious mud was encountered at Rodds Bay as predicted, and seagrass proved hard to find. It had disappeared from RD1 and was present in very limited amounts at RD2. There were plenty of Z.capricorni rhizomes present under the surface, indicating this could be a seasonal issue or possibly related to recent high levels of freshwater?

Gladstone Harbour provided a welcome relief in a solid substrate to work on and good meadows of Zostera with some H.ovalis present as well. Many turtles were also encountered moving off the seagrass meadows as the tide dropped. The team worked quickly in windy conditions to complete 2 sites before the tide came back in! Many thanks to Gladstone QBFP for lending us their capable work boat the ‘Hussar’. Text: Sam Hedge, Seagrass-Watch HQ

	Rodds Bay 26-27 March 2009


	Gladstone Harbour 28 March 2009

Urangan, Hervey Bay (Australia) : 27 March 2009

Mabuiag Island (Qld, Australia) : 18 March 2009

On March 18th a new Seagrass-Watch site was established by the Mabuyagiw Rangers Terence Whap (Senior Ranger), David Amber and Charlie Hankin. The site is directly in front of the community basketball courts so should be noticeable by the whole community. This is the fifth site to be established in the Torres Strait. It is quite a diverse site with up to 6 species being identified within the one site. There were abundant Enhalus fruits around, that looked quite green.

During a visit to Mabuyag (Mabiaug) Island, to assit the rangers with the selecting a site and monitoring it, Jane visited the local school and gave talks to the four classes on the Importance of seagrass. After the talks every child made a badge with a Seagrass-Watch theme. Text: Jane Mellors, Seagrass-Watch HQ

	MG1 18 March 2009


	Education day

Cairns (Qld, Australia) : 09-10 March 2009

Rangers from Mapoon and Napranum attended the Seagrass-Watch workshop (Level 1) in Cairns, March 9-10 held at Northern Fisheries Centre. The workshop brought participants up-to-date on what was happening to seagrass from around the globe. The workshop also included seagrass identification, background on seagrass ecology, the importance of seagrass and how to monitor seagrasses using the Seagrass-Watch protocols.

The field session on the 10 March, moved to Yule Point, where participants got a chance to put into practice what they had learnt in the classroom, where they monitored a Seagrass-Watch site.

To download the Workshop feedback pdf (CLICK HERE)

Cyrene reef (Singapore) : 09 March 2009

A few hours to go before the TeamSeagrass trip to Cyrene Reef today, and the prognosis for the weather is bleak. But for TeamSeagrass, the mantra is "When it's low, We GO!". So long as there's no high winds or lightning, which there wasn't. The tricky landing is as usual, done with great style and safety, thanks to Melvin. All to soon, the monitoring was done and we were off to explore this fantastic reef in the middle of a triangle made up of our world class container port at Pasir Panjang, and the petrochemical plants at Pulau Bukom and Jurong Island.Text: Team Seagrass-Singapore. Click here