Project Description
In 2024, Griffith University hosted the 2024 Social Science Community for the Great Barrier Reef Symposium over three days 11-13th September. This symposium brought together a community of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. It highlighted diverse stories of the Reef and its peoples, unpicked moral dilemmas around decision-making in an uncertain world, and showcased past successes and evolving challenges. It provided a platform for participants to share knowledge, research findings, cutting edge methodologies and engage in critical and creative thinking about the social dimensions of Reef conservation, management, and sustainable development on our changing planet.
In 2024, Griffith leveraged its MOU with SWELL Scuplture Festival to arrange a curated walk and special ‘Altered Tides’ event that brought the creative arts to discussions about the GBR and other reef environments threatened by climate changes.
Project Personnel and Beneficiaries
Alongside Project Partners, at Griffith University, the Symposium was supported by Arts, Education and Law, Humanities Languages and Social Sciences, Griffith Centre for Social & Cultural Research and the Griffith Climate Action Beacon. Three Phd Candidates worked directly on the project, 6 GU volunteers and 6 key staff from across the university – alongside presentations from Griffith staff at the symposium and GU attendees. The event drew GU participants from AEL/HLSS, CARI, Sciences Tourism and Social Marketing and included First Nations GU staff and students.
Outcomes to Date
The symposium was attended by 206 people – half of which were online. The Symposium theme this year, ‘Reimagining Reef Futures: Stories of Creativity, Cooperation, and Courage’ explicitly acknowledged the successive mass coral bleaching events – caused by warming oceans attributable to climate changes – and encouraged participants to tell stories about these events, and rise to the challenge of the social sciences to meaningfully engage with communities, organisations, industries and governments in ways that support actions, climate actions and others, to care for ‘life below water’ and the impacts on human communities.
Project Significance
The most relevant SDG’s are #13 Climate Action and #14 Life Below Water. SDG’s #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and #12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns are also relevant in considering the communities that rely upon the GBR and sustainable tourism practices. The focus on the social sciences brings to the centre the human dimensions of the GBR, much marginalised in terms of funding but increasingly critical in Reef conversations as climate impacts threaten ecosystem demise. Moreover, #5 Gender Equality is relevant given the dominance of women in the social sciences – so the Symposium also supports the participation of women in climate change responses.