International Year of the Reef – Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership

Partner pledges

2018 was International Year of the Reef, and through this initiative, our Partners put forward some fantastic and diverse pledges that themselves and their organisations would commit to, to help look after our Great Barrier Reef and coral reef worldwide. See our Partner’s pledges here.

ReefBlitz 2018- Marine debris event

In October 2018, as part of the International Year of the Reef (IYOR) celebrations, the Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership co-funded ReefBlitz marine debris clean up events in our local region. ReefBlitz is an annual citizen science event that involves a variety of projects up and down the Great Barrier Reef coastline and practical actions, contributing to a snapshot of catchment and reef health. In the below table, you will find a snapshot of the ReefBlitz surveys conducted.

Catchment	Site	Date	Number of volunteers	Weight (kg)	Number of items	Area (ha)	Land/sea index	Top items
Proserpine	Shute Harbour	31/10	27	398	4064	1.3	81/19	2021 cigarette butts
Proserpine	Coral Esplanade, Cannonvale	17/10	24	37.5	614	0.95	97/21	90 cigarette butts, packaging, 86 plastic food, 52 paper/cardboard
O’Connell	Rabbit and Newry Islands	4/11	31 / 2	260	2910	15	19/81	1070 bits of hard plastic, 421 lids/tops
O’Connell	Blacks Beach	23/10	5 / 20	4	137	10	71/29	32 cigarette butts
Pioneer	Town Beach	14/10	19	37	1140	3.5	42/58	488 bits of hard plastic, 100 cigarette butts
Pioneer	Sandyfly Creek/River St Park	16/10	3 / 20	16	1090	14.3	100/0	422 bits of broken glass, 274 cigarette butts
Plane	Half Tide Beach	19/10	9 / 20	16	776	3.6	26/74	460 bits of hard plastic, 121 lids, 51 plastic bags
Plane	Grasstree Beach	31/10	17	4	516	8	44/56	200 bits of hard plastic
		TOTALS	197	770.5	11,247	56.65