Themes

List of Project Themes - see tables below

CURRENT THEMES
Funded by National Environment Research Program (NERP) - July 2011 to December 2014

The NERP Marine Biodiversity Hub will provide scientific information and advice that will support the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities in its decision making in the marine environment, specifically in implementing and monitoring marine bioregional plans, developing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA), and supporting the information needs of the department in providing key baseline information.  This will be accomplished through four tightly integrated national themes, which will allow the Marine Biodiversity Hub to provide consistent scientific data, information and advice to the Commonwealth, States and Northern Territory.  New survey activity will be focused off Northern Australia (North to Coral Sea), in recognition of its global marine biodiversity significance, the rapidly increasing pressures facing this region and the paucity of current information. 

The NERP themes are listed in the table below.

PAST THEMES
Funded by Commonwealth Environment Research Facility (CERF) - 2007 to 2010

The Marine Biodiversity Research Hub was initially funded through the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) Program, administered by the Australian Government's Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.  The key aim of CERF was to provide sound advice to inform environmental public policy objectives and to better the management of Australia's unique environment.  The hub analysed the patterns and dynamics of marine biodiversity to determine the appropriate units and models for effectively predicting Australia's marine biodiversity.  It also developed and delivered the tools needed to manage Australia's marine biodiversity.

The University of Tasmania was the Hub co-ordinator and signed the Funding Agreement with the Commonwealth in 2007.  The hub continued under the CERF program until December 2010 and received funding of $6 million under the CERF program.  The Partners contributed $12 million of their own funds to the initiative.

CERF collaborators included the University of Tasmania, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Museum Victoria. 

Reports and outputs from the CERF program are still available by searching this website.

Read the CERF project overview.

Evolutionary history and local environmental conditions predict the distribution of species and communities on land and this underpin landscape management. The Marine Biodiversity Hub’s aim is to provide a similar predictive capacity for Australia’s seascape. The Hub will build research capacity and collaboration between marine research agencies, and provide new tools to support the identification, assessment, conservation and sustainable use of Australia’s marine assets, including enhancing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) and other ESD management applications. This will assist conservation agencies, resource management agencies, and users develop management approaches that provide comprehensive, adequate and representative conservation of Australia’s seascape. Hub outputs will help agencies and stakeholders meet the requirements of the NRSMPA, Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the Commonwealth Fisheries Act, and various State Fisheries and Conservation Management legislation.

The Marine Biodiversity Hub is specifically organised to bring together partners with a proven history of bilateral cooperation into a single national collaboration that will combine resources, talents and knowledge of marine resources (biological and physical; static and dynamic) to deliver a common understanding and a common suite of spatial and non-spatial tools for the conservation management of marine resources. There are four multidisciplinary collaborative projects in the Hub. Each project consists of a number of tasks (2-6) that vary in their level of inter-agency participation. Collaboration on all tasks is encouraged. Explicit links are made between tasks and projects.