2022-04-12-P&E Agenda - Item 6 - Attachment 1 - TNC Noosa_Oyster Project _6_Monthly_Report

F. Noosa Estuary Seagrass Distribution Report, and Executive Summary.
Part of the partnership with Noosa Shire Council includes a report or summary of the extent and condition of seagrass in the
Noosa River Estuary. This report has been provided to Noosa Shire Council, and an Executive Summary developed for
sharing with interested parties that want a quick overview of the facts. Appendix 2 provides the report in full. The executive
summary of the report is presented in Appendix 3.

Media
A summary of media exposure is presented in Table 5.

Table 5: Media secured


 Media
 Date                 Page title                                                                        Reach
 21-09-21             Noosa Today – Noosa Estuary                                                             11289
 16-02-22             ABC Radio – Noosa Oyster Project                                                        21,000

 Social Media
 Date                 Type                                                                              Reach
 3-11-21              Facebook post – shell cleaning                                                            3572
 3-11-21              Instagram – Shell cleaning                                                                 312
 TOTAL                                                                                                        36,173

TNC also produced its quarterly community news update: The Noosa Oyster Chronicle – Spring 2021 (attached as Appendix
4).


Project finances
The budget under the Noosa Partnership Agreement is $2.4m. TNC secured an additional $1.2m from the Australian
government to augment this work. The Reefbuilder funds are being directly used to:
    o Increasing the construction budget to allow twice the area of oyster reef patches to be constructed
    o Engage the Noosa outreach coordinator, Megan Connell, until June 2023
    o Resource community engagement activities until June 2023
    o Fund post construction independent ecological monitoring

Table 5 below presents expenditure against the $2.4 milliion partnership budget across the five project activity codes:
    1. Reef Building
    2. Hatchery and seedling
    3. Reef integrity and performance assessment
    4. Community engagement, volunteering and media
    5. Project management

Considerable savings have been made in the following areas:
    • Data analysis and restoration suitability mapping – achieved in-house rather than outsourcing
    • Office space and equipment and sundry costs – project manager is working from home office
    • Technical assessments – project manager and in-kind contributions from experts
    • Travel, training and conferences – COVID-19 impact has minimised travel opportunities

                                                                                                                           35