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Wednesday 19 March 2008 (Updated on Thu 20 Mar at 2.30pm AEDT) -

**AUDIO FILES and TRANSCRIPTS NOW AVAILABLE BELOW**

BACKGROUND BRIEFING - ONLINE:
The Great Barrier Reef in 2050 (Parliament House, Canberra)

Keeping the Great Barrier Reef alive is one of the greatest environmental and social challenges faced by Australia today. Some of Australia’s best known reef scientists met with politicians in Canberra on Wednesday to express their concerns about the future of this great Australian icon and discuss potential solutions.

Issues which were discussed included:

• The impact of pollutants entering the reef from land
• How resilient are the organisms living in the reef?
• How effective are Marine Protected Areas in protecting the reef from overfishing?
• The latest research on the impact of climate change on corals

The symposium was part of “Science Meets Parliament” and was organised by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre and the Federation of Australian Science and Technological Societies (FASTS).

SPEAKERS WERE :

	Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (University of Queensland) - Climate impacts on the future of the Reef | Bio | Audio (MP3) | Powerpoint (pdf)
	Professor Iain Gordon (CSIRO) - Water quality issues for the future of the Reef | Bio | Audio (MP3) | Powerpoint (pdf)
	Dr Peter Doherty (Australian Institute of Marine Science) - Zoning and the values of Marine Protected Areas to the future of the Reef | Bio | Audio (MP3) | Powerpoint (pdf)
	Professor Terry Hughes (James Cook University, Qld) - Building the ecological and socio-economic resilience of the Reef | Bio | Audio (MP3) | Powerpoint (pdf)
	Dr Russell Reichelt (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority) - Summary and future look | Bio | Audio (MP3) | Powerpoint (pdf)
	Discussion | Audio (some inaudible audio from the floor - apologies)
	WATCH A REPLAY OF THE FULL BRIEFING NOW
	Read a FULL TRANSCRIPT of the event (pdf)

BRIEFING DETAILS:

BIO NOTES:

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is currently Foundation Professor and Director of the Centre for Marine Studies at The University of Queensland. Hoegh-Guldberg has held academic positions at UCLA, Stanford University, The University of Sydney and The University of Queensland and is currently a member of the Australian Climate Group; the Royal Society (London) Marine Advisory Network; and the Board of Editing Reviewers at Science Magazine. He also heads a large research laboratory (over 27 researchers & students) that focuses on how global warming and ocean acidification are affecting and will affect coral reefs now and into the future. He completed his BSc Hons at the University of Sydney and PhD at UCLA in 1989, and has spent the past 20 years working on climate change issues within marine ecosystems. He was recognised in 1999 with the Eureka Prize in 1999 for “ground-breaking research into the physiological basis of coral bleaching”. His published works include over 100 refereed publications and book chapters (currently ranked the 4th and 5th most cited author in the fields of ‘global warming’ and ‘coral reef ecology’).


Professor Iain Gordon

Iain is Theme leader in CSIRO’s Sustainable Ecosystems Division, based in Townsville. He has a PhD from Cambridge and professorships at RMIT, UQ, JCU and the University of Aberdeen. Iain’s research interests include improving livelihoods and off-farm impacts of beef farms in eastern Queensland and involving communities in Asia, Africa and South America in wildlife management.


Dr Peter Doherty

Peter Doherty is currently the Research Director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. After his PhD, Doherty obtained a Queens Fellowship in Marine Science. Since 1998, Doherty has led an external research program “Maintaining Ecosystem Quality” in the Cooperative Research Centre for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (CRC Reef), which links industry, academia and government institutions and more recently is ProgrAM Manager For the Reef and rainforest Research Centre. From these positions, he has encouraged largescale collaborations between AIMS and other partners, including the $9 million “Great Barrier Reef Seabed Biodiversity Project”.


Professor Terry Hughes

Terry Hughes is the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence and Leader of Program 5: Resilience of linked social-ecological systems. He is a member of the newly established ARC Advisory Council and is on the Advisory Panel for the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund. Terry has broad research interests in ecology, marine biology and the social-ecological dynamics of coral reefs. He received his doctorate in 1984 from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. From 1984-1990, he was a Postdoctoral and Research Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1990, Terry moved to JCU to develop and lead a program in coral reef ecology. He was awarded a Personal Chair in 2000, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2001 in recognition of “a career which has significantly advanced the world's store of scientific knowledge”. In 2007 he was awarded the Sherman Eureka prize for Environmental Research. He has been awarded two Federation Fellowships by the Australian Research Council, from 2002-2012, and is a Fellow of the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, in Stockholm


Dr Russell Reichelt

Russell Reichelt was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on 1 November 2007. He is also Chairman of the National Oceans Advisory Committee, a Director of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. He has served as Chairman of the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Chairman of Seafood Services Australia and of the CSIRO Flagship Advisory Committee for Wealth from Oceans. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (Australia), the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology and the Institute of Company Directors.

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415 or email us.