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Category Archives: Research
UniSC’s K’gari Research Cluster Workshop
The K’gari Research Cluster was formed in response to a recognised need for a more coordinated approach to research on K’gari. The idea is to bring researchers together with the island’s stakeholders and land managers, including universities, Butchulla knowledge holders and Citizen Scientists.
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How do you feel about Tourism?
Tourism is often promoted in protected areas to support conservation, economic development, and community wellbeing, but it can also create environmental pressure and social and cultural impacts.
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Strong partnerships for K’gari’s freshwater future
Protecting K’gari’s internationally significant freshwater ecosystems requires more than good science—it requires strong partnerships.
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Ancient Mystery on K’gari as island lakes dried up during rainy era
K’gari, the world’s largest sand island, is celebrated for its striking freshwater lakes. New research from the University of Adelaide and CSIRO, however, suggests that even the island’s largest and deepest lakes may be vulnerable to disappearing under certain climate conditions.
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Know your Sea Cucumbers!
The Great Sandy Strait (Korrawinga) and surrounding Hervey Bay area are known habitats for many sea cucumber species, including those that were historically targeted in the local bêche-de-mer fishery during the 1980s and 1990s.
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Review of Saving K’gari from the Sand Miners: Memoir of the Fraser Island Environmental Inquiry, 1975–76 by Chris Loorham
Chris Loorham’s memoir is a rich, engaging, and historically valuable contribution to Australian environmental history. It blends personal narrative, legal analysis, and political context to illuminate the Fraser Island Environmental Inquiry (1975–76), a pivotal moment in the evolution of Commonwealth environmental powers. The paper succeeds in offering both a reflective personal account and a substantive explanation of how respectful relationships, inclusive leadership, and independent inquiry shaped a landmark conservation outcome.
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Celebrating Tokiko’s Contribution to K’gari
On 25 May 2026, Tokiko (Su) Dawson will officially be hanging up her work boots. For over two decades, the FIDO volunteer and environmentalist has coordinated FIDO’s quarterly week-long weeding, bush regeneration and monitoring program operating from Talinga (the former Sinclair family home) at Eurong.
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Lessons for K’gari: Wolf Management in Yellowstone National Park
K’gari QPWS rangers, BNTAC rangers and QPS staff were treated to an afternoon one-hour session with renowned wildlife researcher Professor Dan MacNulty, learning about the similarities of Yellowstone National Park visitor and wildlife risk mitigation management to the K’gari management program. Let’s just say the rangers were glad they don’t work with bears on K’gari.
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Building Stewardship for K’gari through Citizen Science
The Australian Citizen Science Association defines citizen science as ‘public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge.’
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Sea Cucumber Research Update
As we wrote in the last newsletter, PhD student Alison Hammond from the University of the Sunshine Coast is currently undertaking a research project on the sea cucumber (bêche-de-mer) fishery in Hervey Bay, the Great Sandy Strait and Tin Can Bay in the 1980s and 1990s. Project results will be used to map the historical and current distribution of sea cucumbers.
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FINIA 