Power to the People, Power to the Reef: Harnessing Community Capital to Scale Adaption Delivery in the Great Barrier Reef

Abstract

The literature on resilience-building in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is predominated by institutional voices. Although community involvement is appreciated in this scholarship, the perspectives are mainly those of scientists and researchers. Community input is used mainly to inform and strengthen academic findings, and there are few articles in the voices and words of GBR community members. Our opinion piece, with its majority co-authorship by the Stakeholder Advisory Group of Australia’s Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), addresses this literary gap. The piece draws upon the barriers to involvement in adaptation delivery as experienced by these GBR locals who have diverse backgrounds related to reef adaptation, including aquaculture, tourism, robotics, natural resource management, civil society, policy and Traditional Owner-led environmental stewardship. Currently, the social capital of communities is underutilised in GBR intervention delivery. However, with the urgency for action in the Reef, we call on governments and researchers to leverage the expertise, labour and infrastructure of local communities to strengthen institutional deployment capacities and thereby accelerate the scale and impact of adaptation efforts. We identify the key elements of inclusive deployment as shared leadership, flexible and inclusive funding, and innovative strategies to address permitting and regulatory barriers to community-led interventions deployment.

1. Introduction

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has traditionally been managed through indirect measures such as zoning, pollution control, and the regulation of marine and coastal activities [1]. Direct efforts to improve the adaptive capacity of the reef have only been implemented since 2017–2025 [1], spurred by consecutive coral mortality events due to climate change, extreme weather, and Crown-of-Thorns starfish (COTs) outbreaks [2,3,4]. The Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP)—the world’s largest and foremost program of its kind—and the COTs Control Program are two initiatives aimed at actively strengthening the climate resilience of the GBR [1]. Along with a range of other ongoing scientific interventions in the Reef, these programs have cemented Australia’s lead in the research and deployment of coral reef adaptation technologies [1,5,6,7].

Whilst the various initiatives in the GBR have been instrumental in advancing coral reef adaptation science and technologies [1,5,6] and knowledge of collaborative best practices [8,9,10], their scope is yet largely confined to research or small-scale field trials. However, with five mass bleaching events in just eight years, and accelerating climate change impacts [11,12], our concern as GBR researchers and community members is that the “reef will not wait” until adaptation and governance mechanisms and institutional capabilities are fully refined and coordinated [2,3,4,13]. We believe that while strong policies, regulations [10], and scientific programs [14] are essential, institutional deployment efforts that are often naturally constrained by the limits of project finances, human resources, infrastructure (such as boats, etc.) and timelines cannot meet the urgency or scale of adaptive action required in the GBR [13]. To achieve reef resilience at speed and scale, the currently underutilized capital of Reef communities (including Traditional Owners, industry, and civil society) is a ready resource or low-hanging fruit [15,16] that can augment the deployment capacities of institutional teams [5,17] (see Figure 1).

We thus call on governments and research agencies to step beyond typical research engagement with communities and instead mobilize and actively involve local actors in interventions deployment. ‘Deliberative effort needs to be expended in planning and developing the regional supply chains’ [14] such that communities can be systematically and routinely engaged as delivery partners, citizen scientists and volunteers, in the deployment of adaptation solutions. Leveraging the expertise, labor and infrastructural resources of communities can not only enhance reef resilience outcomes but also build wider environmental awareness and social license for adaptation projects [5,17,18]. We identify the key elements of genuine community involvement [19] as follows:

• Transparent information-sharing between institutions and communities [16];
• Investments in industry engagement and capacity building [14];
• Flexible funding and regulatory structures (outside formal procurement frameworks) to support community-led solutions delivery [5,17].

2. The Need for Community Voices in the GBR Adaptation Discourse

The importance of community involvement in reef adaptation efforts is well documented in the GBR conservation literature [5,8,9,17,20]. However, this scholarship is largely developed by institutional research teams, with community inputs being used primarily to inform and enrich academic observations. The underrepresentation of non-scholarly voices means that the efficacy of reef interventions and the barriers to participating in the delivery of these scientific solutions, as experienced by local communities, are inadequately considered in the GBR adaptation discourse. Local knowledge can contribute, for example, to the assessment of reef health and suitability of potential intervention sites, and ways to scale up intervention methods.

At the same time, wider public and political perceptions of Reef health and conservation needs are influenced by sometimes conflicting scientific views and politicized narratives from policy advocates on the efficacy/ futility of adaptation efforts in the GBR, the validity of different adaptation methods, and the (in/)evitability of the Reef’s loss in the near future [21,22,23]. These polarized debates further undermine community and Traditional Owner perceptions of not being heard [24], which in turn can lead to disengagement from participation at the local level, and consequent lack of political support for greater investment in research and implementation. These high profile debates also discourage reef tourism, causing local communities to suffer from both loss of tourism revenues and declines in investments in Reef economies and conservation programs [25,26,27,28]. Thus, the marginalization of community voices in GBR adaptation discourses and high profile, polarized debates serve to discourage reef communities and stakeholders ‘caught in an uncomfortable moral binary’ from leading and participating proactively in reef adaptation efforts and interventions delivery [29].

Our essay addresses the scarcity of community perspectives in the GBR resilience literature by reflecting the lived conservation experiences and challenges of GBR communities in their own voices and words. Our 12 co-authors are community members and researchers from all along the Queensland coast and GBR catchment. The co-authors have varied backgrounds relevant to reef resilience and conservation including aquaculture, tourism, robotics, natural resource management, civil society, and policy. One author is a Traditional Owner, and others hold multiple roles in GBR governance and advisory bodies such as their Local Marine Advisory Committees (LMACs) or the Reef 2050 Advisory Committee (RAC). LMACs are formal community committees that provide a forum for stakeholders to discuss issues and provide locally specific input into the GBR Marine Park’s management. The Reef 2050 Advisory Committee provides strategic advice on stakeholder priorities, cross-sectoral issues and the implementation of the actions listed under the bilateral Reef 2050 Plan.

The co-authors of our piece are also facilitators/ members of the Stakeholder and Traditional Owner Engagement Advisory Group (Advisory Group)—whose discussions have formed the basis and impetus for this perspective piece. Alongside surveys, community panels, and approaches specifically designed for Traditional Owners, the Advisory Group is one of several community engagement mechanisms used by RRAP to explore pathways for scaling GBR interventions. During its two terms (2022–2023 and 2024–2025), the Advisory Group advised RRAP on the social, economic, cultural, and ethical implications of adaptation technologies, and opportunities for a greater community role in the delivery of reef restoration interventions. In this essay, we identify the key gaps and propose strategies to strengthen community involvement in climate adaptation deployment in the GBR. The gaps and strategies we present reflect the regular barriers to involvement in intervention delivery as experienced firsthand by the Advisory Group members. As mentioned in the paragraph above, the Advisory Group comprises leading and emerging figures from diverse GBR sectors including aquaculture, tourism, robotics, natural resource management, and civil society (including a Traditional Owner-led conservation organization). Reef degradation, coupled with the currently limited speed and scale of institutional deployment due to financial and human resource constraints, directly impacts the lives, livelihoods, and communities of these Group members. We would like our readers to note that although our insights and recommendations in this essay are grounded in the GBR context, the underlying principles that we present are relevant to both marine and terrestrial environments, worldwide.

3. Potential for Community-Led Adaptation Deployment in the GBR

As mentioned briefly in Section 1, current reef adaptation efforts in the GBR are largely confined to research or small-scale field trials. Despite their limited size, these pilot projects have involved diverse stakeholders and rightsholders, including industry, Traditional Owners and other community groups. The engagements with these community groups have in turn highlighted the lacunae in the current and planned deployment of adaptation interventions. For example, although the current research and deployment trials in the GBR are intended to evolve and expand over time [20,30,31], the urgency of action in the Reef suggests that a large pool of delivery agents (beyond just institutional actors) are needed to support the scaling up of resilience efforts. However, to enable their effective involvement and leadership in conservation efforts, the following capacity and investments needs must be fulfilled to overcome barriers to community-led intervention delivery:

• Need to improve community involvement to boost local and institutional intervention capacities: Government investment and legislative support are essential for the successful delivery of large-scale adaptation efforts based on scientific models and methods. Similarly, scientific expertise and research are vital to identify appropriate intervention options, decision-support models and deployment methods [9,32]. However, regular and transparent communication of scientific results and progress, and involving local stakeholders in pilot deployments and monitoring are also crucial [9,32]. Early and consistent community involvement through information sharing and discussion platforms, and public consultations enables adaptation projects to build environmental awareness, community understanding of novel interventions, and secure social buy-in [8,9,32]. Without this community involvement, resilience-building efforts not only miss out on access to social infrastructure and capital but can risk community disengagement and the loss of trust or social license.
• Need to invest in industry engagement and capacity building to complement deployment procurement processes: Funding for community involvement in intervention deployment (and other community natural resource management programs) are typically competitive grants. This competitive approach hinders partnerships and the amalgamation of community resources towards the shared goal of strengthening reef resilience. A competitive funding model also impedes community-driven, ground-up environmental efforts that are often intrinsically collaborative, comprehensive and enduring, especially in the face of political changes and uncertainties [33,34]. Additionally, larger, well-resourced industry players and communities enjoy an unfair advantage with respect to participating in solutions deployment compared to smaller businesses and community groups with fewer resources [35]. The challenges and inequities experienced by some groups and communities with respect to involvement in interventions deployment has various implications: As under-resourced communities and groups are less able to contribute to interventions deployment, advocacy and decision-making with respect to the siting of conservation efforts, degraded reefs in smaller, less-resourced regions are often overlooked in favor of better-resourced regions [36]. This spatial bias can adversely impact excluded groups’ perceptions of adaptation projects and their social buy-in to these activities including contributing to intervention deployment efforts [35].
• Limited or competitive access to adaptation support and resources can reinforce the social inequities faced by Traditional Owners in Sea Country Management: The issues of inequitable access to adaptation interventions and spatial biases described above are especially acute in small and under-resourced Traditional Owner communities [37]. For example, reefs in regions that are severely impacted by coral bleaching are often overlooked for adaptation projects, in favor of areas with stronger social infrastructure and community resources. Inequitable access to support and resources and opportunities to participate can be deeply felt and exacerbate existing social injustices and inequities faced by some Traditional Owner communities [32,37,38,39]. For instance, intermittent funding for Traditional Owner-led conservation programs can exacerbate social and economic distress in already disadvantaged Indigenous communities and contribute to high rates of suicide amongst those whose businesses and occupations are adversely impacted [32,37,38,39].
  Additionally, Traditional Owners typically have deep cultural knowledge about the unique histories, management needs and characters of their Land and Sea Countries that cannot be divorced from their involvement in/ delivery of adaptation interventions. That is, as Australia’s ‘first scientists, farmers, engineers, innovators, and conservationists’, Traditional Owners have drawn on Ancestral Knowledge and cultural wisdom to effectively care for their environments through shifting seasons and climates [40]. For example, Indigenous Knowledge can help predict extreme weather events and select ecologically and culturally appropriate adaptation responses in the GBR [24,40]. If adequately considered, such Indigenous Insights can enhance adaptation outcomes [24,37]. However, in the context of the GBR, Traditional Owners, their customary obligations to their Ancestors and Traditional Lands, and their cultural protocols are largely underrepresented and incorporated in interventions delivery decisions and activities [32]. Nevertheless, more recently, research and development programs such as RRAP and the COTs Control Program are beginning to draw on Indigenous Knowledge for purposes such as selecting high value or high impact sites for the delivery of adaptation interventions [7,9,10,40].
  However, despite this slowly growing institutional appreciation of the importance of ‘weaving this [Traditional] knowledge with western science…[to] overcome key challenges’ and ‘hit the right markers’ for reef adaptation [40], Indigenous Knowledge is still poorly integrated into decisions and practices for interventions delivery in the GBR [32]. As a result, Traditional Owners often perceive institutional efforts to secure their involvement in interventions delivery as tokenistic. For example, government agencies in the GBR often work with specific Traditional Owner Groups under the Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreements (TUMRAs) program [41]. TUMRAs are legislatively accredited community-based plans for the stewardship of Traditional resources and co-management of the Reef [41]. However, there are over 70 Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal clan groups in the GBR [41], and no single body authorized to represent them all. Consequently, government agencies using TUMRAs to secure Indigenous involvement in interventions delivery may liaise with Traditional Owner groups who do not hold the cultural authority to speak for neighboring Sea Countries (and indeed boundaries may be uncertain or contested). Thus, such official frameworks, can undermine communities’ willingness to participate in Sea Country-related co-management and interventions delivery [38].
• Lack of consistent funding for community-driven or ground-up interventions deployment: Although local knowledge and grassroots-driven initiatives are considered to be intrinsically collaborative, cost effective and essential for reef resilience and adaptation [34,42,43,44,45], dedicated government funding for community-led or bottom-up interventions deployment is largely absent in the GBR [46]. While intervention methods are still being developed and refined, most government funding is directed to large-scale, top-down research initiatives, led by research institutions or government agencies [47], leaving limited resources for community groups, Traditional Owners, and local stakeholders to lead or co-design interventions. This funding gap not only restricts the scalability and inclusivity of adaptation efforts due to the exclusion of community infrastructure and social capital [11], but also risks overlooking the social and cultural dimensions, Traditional wisdom and community ownership critical to encouraging local stewardship and therefore long-term reef resilience [48].
• Financial and regulatory barriers to community/industry involvement in interventions delivery: There is keen interest and the potential for community and industry groups (such as tourism operators, not-for-profit organizations and commercial coral harvesters), as well as Traditional Owner groups and businesses to contribute to adaptation efforts. Amongst these actors, many commercial vessel operators and aquaculture businesses have a strong foundation in the skills, training and capacities needed to deliver adaptation solutions. However, a range of financial, logistical and regulatory barriers constrain the potential for their involvement. For example, vessels engaged in non-recreational activities, such as adaptation solutions deployment, are required to meet high work health and safety standards, have appropriate insurance cover (which can be prohibitive for in-water activities), and stringent permitting requirements. While we acknowledge the need for appropriate and rigorous regulatory oversight of activities in the GBR Marine Park, the costs and processes of meeting these regulations can be prohibitive for community groups and smaller commercial operators. Innovative solutions have the potential to establish appropriate standards and oversight without excluding hybrid enterprises from contributing to public environmental outcomes.

4. Innovative Strategies for Community-Led Adaptation Deployment

In this section, we draw on our experiences as GBR community members and advocates to outline some ideas for cross-sectoral collaboration and flexible and inclusive intervention delivery arrangements. Our recommendations, outlined in Figure 2, have the potential to improve community involvement and thereby enhance the outreach and outcomes of GBR adaptation efforts:

• Local leadership and coordination of intervention delivery: Community-led efforts to deploy adaptation interventions can improve community knowledge and capacities to contribute to adaptation interventions whilst simultaneously complementing institutional efforts. This ground-up approach is consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, that suggests communities should be empowered to make decisions that affect them [49]. It is worth noting that community-led interventions do not mean devolving all decisions to local actors, but rather emphasizes the complimentary roles played at different levels, e.g., governments, local communities, and by different sectors, e.g., tourism, marine services, Traditional Owners, community groups [50]. For communities, allowing local leadership engenders local ownership, autonomy, resilience and self-reliance, and ultimately their capacity to act at their own pace and within their resources [51]. Regional planning and coordination could support the down-scaled implementation of national reef resilience goals (such as those outlined in the Reef 2050 Plan) and demonstrate clear linkages to this high-level policy document. Encouraging a diversity of delivery models (across community, Traditional Owner, industry) recognizes that different groups or sectors have potential to contribute to overall delivery capacity, and will also bring their own values, knowledge, skills and capacities to the overall mission. In this way, for example, marine contractors could lead adaptation interventions in key reefs identified for their ecological values, whilst complementary local tourism, community and Traditional Owners could lead adaptation efforts at sites of local economic, social and cultural values. Locations, interventions, roles and resourcing would be allocated according to local needs and capacities, in a collaboration between Marine Park managers, research scientists, industry, community and Traditional Owners. Collaboration and partnerships would be a feature of this approach, as capabilities are blended to achieve critical functions.

An example of how local communities have been empowered to contribute, and draw on local resources, is Australia’s Natural Resource Management (NRM) system [52,53]. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) systems are often described as ‘shorthand for governance that starts from the ground up but deals with cross-scale interactions’ [54]. In the Australian NRM framework, federal, state, and local governments, Indigenous communities, landholders, and regional NRM planning authorities work collaboratively to sustainably manage land, water, and biodiversity [51,52]. NRM planning authorities are empowered to identify regional priorities and long-term plans that are scientifically and community backed [51,52]. In turn, this regional approach to NRM planning enables governments to invest in plan implementation rather than individual projects. For example, the second phase of the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT 2)/National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, c. 2000–2008 [55,56] concentrated on integrated catchment management, regional planning and community-led natural resource management as a means of curbing dryland salinity and improving water quality [52,53]. We understand that in recent times, the political and funding-motivated changes undergone by the Australian NRM system and its limited environmental outcomes have been critiqued in the literature [57]. Nevertheless, in its original form, the NRM model offered an effective means of facilitating community involvement, fostering community ownership of land and water management efforts, cross-sectoral partnerships and a holistic approach to managing regional ecosystems [29,30].

2.

Diversified and inclusive delivery models to community-led intervention delivery: The inequities of competitive procurement processes that advantage larger, well-resourced industry actors and communities to participate in interventions deployment over smaller, poorly resourced groups can be reduced through capabilities-based approaches to community involvement and the leveraging of existing community networks [58]. For example, a capabilities-based example of community involvement is the model of emergency incident management systems that maximizes the use of existing social capital and infrastructure. The Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) is the nationally recognized system for managing incidents including large emergencies, in Australia and New Zealand [59]. AIIMS provides guidelines for the formation of Incident Management Teams, with roles and teams based on the size, nature and complexity of emergencies [60]. Similarly, involving Traditional Owners and stakeholders in intervention delivery based on their capabilities rather than their sectoral affiliations, can overcome limitations (such as skills or capacity) in any sector or group. For example, whilst individual fishers or tourism operators may not be able to independently deliver adaptation solutions due to their skill or resource limitations, a flexible team comprising varyingly skilled community members contributing different types of social capital can overcome this challenge. Thus, the delivery of reef interventions can be amplified by allowing for flexible community-based teams with a diversity of expertise, philosophical approaches and resources, whose numbers can vary as needed.

Leveraging the pre-existing regional and reef-wide mechanisms of social mobilization in the GBR rather than creating entirely new systems for community involvement in interventions delivery is also key. Some of the existing groups and networks in the GBR include regional NRM systems, Local Marine Advisory Committees and reef monitoring partnerships (such as the Reef Water Quality Report Card Partnerships), Traditional Owner bodies and initiatives, and regional/ local-level government agencies and programs. Working with and through such existing social networks is cost-effective and inherently scalable requiring only modest investments for personnel such as regional coordinators [58,61]. The community-led Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub in Far North Queensland is an example of a place-based and inclusive intervention deployment model that may be adopted or adapted to other regions [61]. The Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub is a network of Traditional Owners, scientists, tourism operators, and community groups whose approach to GBR stewardship successfully combines grassroots action with pioneering science and adaptive technologies [61]. The Hub engages both local communities and Indigenous rangers in practical training and shared learning activities such as coral spawning workshops, collaborative monitoring, and reef restoration trials [58,62]. Through these shared activities, the Hub improves knowledge sharing, community understanding and support for interventions and community-led environmental action [58,61,63].

3.

Foundational capacity building in areas of need: Many funding opportunities for Traditional Owners or community groups inevitably reinforce inequity. This is because small groups often lack the baseline capacity to meet eligibility criteria for grants or procurement processes. These include basic business development, infrastructure like boats and sheds, and for Traditional Owners, access to traditional sea Country. Whilst these capacity gaps are not considered to be the ‘core business’ of environmental programs, these needs are often unaddressed in community development initiatives as well. This gap is particularly felt in Traditional Owner groups, wherein ranger programs provide one of very few community-based opportunities for youth to gain foundational work experience. Although ranger groups are a natural fit for sea Country management and Traditional Owner aspirations, these groups are often lacking in key business skills and infrastructure. We propose the following solutions to these challenges:

• Broker a capacity building program that works across Traditional portfolios to deliver foundational skills activities such as coral spawning workshops, collaborative monitoring, and reef restoration trials [58,62], etc., to Traditional Owner and other small community enterprises.
• Partner and mentor within and across regions, building on some of the principles of programs such as the Family-by-Family Program [54]. Under this program, families support other families to build their confidence, self-agency and resilience, thereby offering pathways to shift out of the negative effects of intergenerational disadvantage.
• RRAP small-scale pilot trials have supported Traditional Owner capacity building in the southern GBR. These capacity-building efforts, which have also involved Traditional Owners from other Sea Countries have served to build skills and connect groups across the region [64].

4.

Flexible funding and support for community-led deployment initiatives: Funding is a key barrier and enabler of community-led initiatives. Adopting a shared leadership and diversified delivery model with local leadership requires changes to funding arrangements. For greater chances of success, community-led initiatives must be strategically supported by flexible government funding and partnerships that are separate from formal procurement-based or competitive project funding processes that are currently a feature of community involvement in adaptation interventions and other natural resource management activities. We have already described the limitations of conventional funding arrangements in Section 2 of this essay: To overcome these limitations, we propose the allocation of a certain level of base funding to enable regional and/or local coordination, capacity building and knowledge sharing. The recommended key features of this funding are below:

• Funding must be flexible in how and when it is applied to meet these goals, thereby allowing uptake that is fit for local circumstances. Various international studies confirm that flexible funding structures are an effective means of enabling local governments to implement equitable resilience strategies that reflect local priorities and support community capacity building [65,66].
• An inclusive and participatory process to determine local priorities, involving local stakeholders and Traditional Owners, in consultation with management agencies and scientists such as found in the Australian NRM system (discussed in Point 1 of this section) [52,53].
• Enduring or for at least five-year funding cycles as the minimum timeframe: Short-term funding cycles of three years or less are disruptive and particularly challenging for smaller organizations or groups where project funding is often a significant component of total revenue [67].
• Working with existing regional groups and networks such as the Cairns-Port Douglas Hub (described in Point 2 of this section) can offer a scalable, equitable, cost-effective and ready means to engage communities in GBR stewardship [35,36,58,61,63].

Below are some examples of methods by which flexible funding arrangements with the above features may be established and coordinated:

• Currently, permit-bearing commercial operators in the GBR levy an environmental management charge on Reef visitors [68]. This fee of approx. AUD $8 per person per day, is remitted to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, for its management of the Reef [68]. We propose that a proportion of this environmental charge or a supplementary charge be used as base funding to support regionally coordinated, and community-led adaptation efforts. Several international destinations such as the Balearic Islands in Spain, New Zealand, Thailand and Mexico have successfully implemented tourism levies [69]. These levies serve as a durable and scalable means of supporting community-led stewardship and nature-based solution whilst also ‘buffering communities and economies from future shocks that originate from a range of sources, including climate change or economic and political upheavals’ [65].
• To support job retention and alleviate post-COVID economic hardship amongst GBR tourism operators, funding was provided on a competitive basis for site monitoring and stewardship actions. This funding program offers an example of how investment and policy outcomes can be aligned across jobs and environment portfolios [70].
• Market mechanisms such as credits and offsets are increasingly being promoted and adopted for biodiversity as well as carbon outcomes [71,72]. Whilst developing sound methodologies, functioning markets, and strong monitoring and accountability systems requires significant time and resources, these market schemes can effectively attract private sector funding for public good outcomes. Acknowledging the need for substantial upfront government investment, we propose that ‘Reef restoration credits’ could serve as a long-term funding source for industry operators to support nature-positive actions in the GBR.
• As outlined earlier in this section, the system of funding implementation of accredited regional NRM plans allowed local discretion in regional investment allocations with appropriate government oversight. A similar model may be used to support regional community-led reef care programs and interventions deployment in the GBR [73,74].
• Flexible, non-competitive grants to local governments for climate adaptation planning [75] can ensure equity across local government areas. Such a non-competitive funding model can be tailored to regional circumstances and not privilege higher capacity regions. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants in the United States are an example of a flexible and inclusive funding model that has successfully enabled parties to access grant financing regardless of their climate planning capacities, prior climate action and competitive disadvantages in comparison to bigger and more well-resourced regions and groups [76].

5.

Creative approaches to reduce regulatory barriers to community-led deployment: well-intentioned community efforts can be paralyzed by bureaucratic requirements. Typically, these involve financial, logistical and regulatory barriers, such as full commercial survey requirements for non-recreational vessels and onerous insurance-related workplace health and safety insurance protocols that are triggered when private and/or recreational enterprises are adjudged to be commercial operators. Often the latter preclude or reduce the ability to engage community volunteers, particularly for in-water activities. Whilst we recognize the importance of regulatory oversight in ensuring human safety in the GBR Marine Park, micro-barriers to involvement are very significant for community, Traditional Owners, and small businesses. Individually these groups lack the capacity to negotiate alternative arrangements, but as part of a collective, supported, where appropriate, by government and research institutions, creative solutions to some of these barriers may be developed. Regional coordination hubs such at the Cairns-Port Douglas Hub discussed earlier, could conduct the base analysis of the most significant barriers to community involvement in interventions delivery. These analyses could then feed into processes to address and minimize the barriers. Below are some creative approaches by which the regulatory barriers to community involvement in interventions deployment may be surmounted:

• Discussions of the seemingly perverse regulatory requirements with relevant regulatory agencies could reveal possible alternatives such as a community/public good category that falls between recreational and commercial survey requirements. A successful example of private or recreational vessels carrying out conservation actions in a hybrid—neither recreational nor commercial category—is the World Wildlife Fund’s Coastal Communities Initiative operating across 29 countries [16]. This initiative enables small-scale fishers and local groups to engage in community-led marine conservation activities such as co-management, habitat restoration, etc., outside the bounds of formal commercial structures and regulatory requirements [16].
• Working closely with relevant permitting authorities may highlight how community-led resilience efforts may be supported through changes to the reef permitting and zoning systems. Some options of changes include the incorporation of community management overlays in zoning plans to enable community-led interventions under specific conditions in designated areas. The Corals for Conservation-led Reefs of Hope initiative in the Pacific is an example of such a program that has successfully collaborated with governments and permitting agencies to embed community-led conservation into formal reef management regulatory frameworks [15]. This UNESCO-backed initiative has facilitated community-led actions during emergencies such as marine heatwaves and extreme weather events, thereby bolstering institutional responses and resilience efforts. The program has also enabled community involvement in actions such as coral translocation, larval collection and seeding, etc., during scientifically grounded seasons and opportunities to enhance reef adaptation and resilience [15].
• The establishment of triggers could allow for rapid community responses following disasters such as cyclones or bleaching events. The development of these triggers and response procedures could be modeled on the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS) (outlined earlier in this paper), that guides the formation and mobilization of Incident Management Teams based on the size, nature and complexity of emergencies [59,60]. For example, the above-mentioned Reefs of Hope initiative [15] demonstrates how rapid triage and repair carried out by ‘competent divers under informed supervision…can be very cost-effective’ means of aiding recovery [77]. These emergency measures that are within the scope of community-based projects [77] include restorative actions such as ‘cementing or epoxying large cracks in the reef framework, righting and reattaching corals, sponges and other reef organisms…storing detached [and/or healthy in the case of bleaching events] organisms in a safe environment until they can be reattached’ [77] or removing debris and foreign objects that can damage intact reefs [77].
• Examining how regulatory and insurance requirements are fulfilled by not-for-profit and citizen science initiatives [78,79,80]. For example, in Queensland catchments, Queensland Water & Land Carers (QWALC) [81] acted as an aggregator for the insurance of land care and related NRM initiatives led by volunteers.

5. Conclusions

In their draft assessment of World Heritage-listed sites (released on 26 May 2025), UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has expressed ‘utmost concern’ for the long-term resilience of the GBR [10,18]. The Committee has identified water pollution, climate change impacts, and unsustainable fishing as the main pressures on the Reef. These threats make it clear that the deployment of reef resilience and adaptation interventions must be scaled and accelerated if their benefits are to be realized in a timely way [82]. Building the capacity and capability of community, Traditional Owners, and industry to plan, manage, and deliver interventions that contribute to reef health and resilience is a burning need that can and must progress alongside the scientific research and adjustments to reef governance systems that will enable upscaled interventions. As GBR researchers and community members with direct experience of the barriers to community-led adaptation deployment, we urgently call for open, inclusive, and flexible partnerships between institutions and communities to support ecosystem adaptation. Enabling the human, intellectual, and infrastructural capital to augment the deployment capacities of institutional research teams can allow for reef resilience at speed and scale [14]. Therefore, by empowering the people, the Reef is empowered.