Broome volunteers give up Easter Holiday Sleep-ins for the Health of their Coast

Written on the 14th of April 2009 by Fiona Bishop

Community members in Broome sacrificed their Easter holiday sleep-ins and have demonstrated their commitment to the health of the Kimberley coast by fronting up as early as 5am to go seagrass monitoring in internationally renowned Roebuck Bay. Seagrass is one of the world's most important ecosystems. It provides habitat to a myriad of marine creatures, is vital to sustaining our fisheries as a fish breeding ground and nursery, and is a key food source for turtles and dugongs, with dugongs eating up to 40 kg per day.

"Seagrass meadows around the world are shrinking due to human impacts such as pollution and dredging", project coordinator Fiona Bishop said.

"To help prevent this trend from continuing, over 250 seagrass monitoring projects have been established globally", she said.

The Broome Community Seagrass Monitoring Project seeks to protect the sensitive seagrass beds in Broome's Roebuck Bay, which is a biodiversity hot spot and has been listed as a Ramsar Wetland of International Significance.

"Monitoring involves following the GPS out kilometers over the bay's intertidal mudflats to the monitoring points, and recording seagrass statistics in squares called quadrats. Community volunteers are vital to the monitoring because there is a brief time-frame, usually early morning, when the tide is at its lowest, in which we need to complete the whole monitoring session. Adequate numbers of volunteers are key to ensuring the monitoring is accomplished before our famous speedy tide turns and engulfs the site", Ms Bishop said.

"The scores of children and adults that turned up even before the sun's first rays appeared over the horizon was extremely heartening, and the Easter monitoring was a great success as a result", she said.

The Broome Community Seagrass Monitoring Project is co-managed by Environs Kimberley and the Department of Environment and Conservation with funding assistance from the Australian Government's Envirofund and the Port of Broome.