Biodiversity and sustainability along the Macintyre River in Inverell will be helped along with a dose of funding.
Macintyre River, Inverell, NSW. Photo: Cgoodwin, Wikimedia Commons
Inverell Shire Council has secured a grant for $13,625 to eradicate weeds from the river’s banks. The project will focus on woody weeds along an 800 metre stretch between Clive Street and the Tingha Bridge.
Removing weeds will make room for native vegetation, and improve fish habitat by providing shade, cover, water temperature regulation and a food source for native fish.
The funding comes from the NSW Department of Primary Industries, out of $570,000 awarded to recreational angling clubs, community groups, landholders and local councils for 30 fish habitat projects.
Minister for Agriculture Katrina Hodgkinson said projects cover many popular coastal and inland fishing spots in NSW, with nearly $1.1 million committed as in-kind support from the successful applicants.
“These grants are funded through the Recreational Fishing Trusts,” Ms Hodgkinson said.
“The program was highly competitive with 71 applications submitted and there was strong support by local recreational anglers for the applications.”
Weed control activities along the Macintyre River will be completed during 2014 and will include initial weed control and follow up spot spraying activities on any re-growth.
Inverell council general manager Paul Henry said the project is one of many identified when completing the council’s river plan. A river planner targeted 15 trouble spots.
Mr Henry said local community groups have expressed interest in addressing specific issues along the river.
“The Inverell Rotary Club put their hand up to look at the area near John Northey look-out/Kurrajong Park. They looked at repairing that area and planting out the areas with native plants to try to rejuvenate (it) and create a link all along the river for birds and animal habitat.”
He said the grant money will tackle invasive introduced weeds along the high bank level. Once cleared, replanting may begin.
Phil Sutton is the environment compliance co-ordinator for council and indicated the project has other benefits besides environmental restoration.
He said the project would help to increase public awareness about the weeds control and prevention.
“It’s an effort to provide a flow-on benefit to landholders and communities further down the river. Obviously if you don’t treat (weeds) now, they go further down the river.”
Contract sprayers will be engaged to treat the weeds and Phil said it will be a 12 month project with wildlife sustainability in mind.
“What the area will be treated with is a weed-control agent that is a bioactive control, which doesn't affect the riparian area; it doesn't affect the water or the frogs or anything like that.”
How do we get the most out of our marine reserves? The government is in the process of reviewing Australia’s network of marine protected areas. The review focuses on zones that exclude recreational fishers, and whether those fishers can be allowed back in.
While we don’t know much about oceans off north west Australia, we know they’re important. Photo: Australian Institute of Marine Science
However, fishing isn’t the only threat to marine life: oil and gas developments also influence offshore waters. Separating marine protected areas and regions with oil and gas potential leads to an unrepresentative reserve system. But working with oil and gas companies could work out both for industry and our ocean.
Like oil and water
Striking the balance between biodiversity conservation and industry is never easy. It is particularly difficult in regions that support both important biodiversity values and industry assets such as oil and gas resources and important commercial and recreational fisheries.
While the current management review will focus on fishing, a very different challenge exists in Australia’s northwest marine region. Here, some of the world’s most pristine and biologically diverse marine ecosystems overlay internationally significant oil and gas reserves.
Australia’s gas production has almost doubled since the turn of the century and is expected to quadruple by 2035. In a time of transition, following a decade-long mining boom, the government is seeking to maximise access to the nation’s oil and gas resources. With the majority (92%) of Australia’s conventional gas resources located in Australia’s northwest, finding the right balance between biodiversity conservation and industry interests is difficult and potentially expensive.
In fact, disasters have happened. In 2009, this region experienced the worst offshore oil spill in Australia’s history. The blowout from PTTEP’s Montara wellhead, located 250km off the Kimberley coast, resulted in 10 weeks of continuous release of oil and gas into the Timor Sea.
In total, the oil spill was estimated to cover an area of 90,000 square kilometres. Ongoing aerial spraying with dispersants was the primary early response to the spill with tens of thousands of litres of chemical dispersants sprayed into Australian waters.
We learned two very important lessons from the spill. First, the threat of an oil spill was realised and one of our most pristine and ecologically diverse marine environments was put at risk of irreversible damage.
Second, it highlighted what we don’t know. We lack the ecological data for the region to be able to identify and manage the impacts of an oil spill.
The proposed strict no-take marine reserves for Australia’s northwest leave many ecological communities unprotected. Image: Cordelia Moore
Protecting hidden reefs and biodiversity hotspots
After the spill, scientists hurried to start filling the gaps in what we know. While we lacked pre-existing ecological data, there was little evidence of a substantial impact from the oil spill. To improve this process in the future we now have some baseline monitoring sites in place. In addition, we have a new regulator focused on the implementation of more stringent oil spill response plans and risk management procedures and individual companies have had to upgraded their response and management plans.
One important discovery was the rich coral reef communities of the submerged banks and shoals. These abrupt geological features pepper the continental shelf and shelf edge. However, as these underwater mounds plateau beneath the sea surface they have previously gone unnoticed, hidden beneath the waves.
Intensive post-spill surveys revealed the shoals to support fish diversity greater that that seen on similar features within the Great Barrier Reef. They are also positioned to act as important stepping stones for biological connectivity across Australia’s north west and may serve as an important refuge for species vulnerable to climate change.
However, the current national marine reserves system offers almost no protection for these areas (less than 2% fall within the no take marine reserves).
“World’s largest marine park network”
The previous government aimed to create the “world’s largest marine park network”. With the current network falling just shy of 30% of Australia’s territorial waters, they came very close.
Although, as Bob Pressey detailed in his article on Australia’s marine protected areas, size isn’t everything.
Last month I lead a workshop at the University of Western Australia to assess the marine park network to the north west of Australia (north of Broome). The workshop included universities, government and industry.
During the workshop we assessed just how representative the marine parks of this region actually are. With little data available on biodiversity, we used the proxy of undersea geomorphology.
What we found is that of 19 different ecological communities, only four are adequately represented, two are over-represented, seven are under-represented and six aren’t represented at all.
Because we don’t exactly know what’s under the sea, we use geomorphology as a proxy. Image: Cordelia Moore
The most vulnerable section of our marine region is the continental shelf (less than 200m depth), where threats to biodiversity are concentrated. Despite this, the majority (75%) of the proposed no take areas focuses on the abyssal plain 3000-6000 metres below the surface.
Why? Protecting biodiversity to the north west of Australia comes with substantial opportunity costs to the oil and gas industry and commercial fishers. As a result, the proposed marine reserves of Australia’s north west have weighed heavily in favour of industry.
A way forward
With a reserve system already struggling to be representative, there are very real concerns associated with making any changes outside a robust conservation planning process. Currently the federal government proposes to maintain the outer boundaries of the marine parks network, while changing zoning within the reserves to allow recreational and commercial fishers access. But without closing alternative areas, this will only compromise our limited ability to manage threatening processes and conserve biodiversity.
Examining a small fraction of the problem will only ever provide a small fraction of the solution.
At the workshop in WA, we tried to come up with a better solution. We looked at a way to maximise representativeness, while minimising costs to user groups using an advanced systematic conservation planning approach.
Preliminary analyses demonstrated that entirely excluding whole regions prospective for oil and gas reserves makes a system of marine protected areas unrepresentative while including these regions makes a reserve system very expensive.
One cost-effective solution could be found for this region by bringing industry users into the management process and agreeing that prospective areas for oil and gas extraction are not incompatible with marine biodiversity conservation. Oil and gas developments often have stringent biodiversity protection targets and with people present on most sites all the time, enforcement of adjacent no take areas is potentially far cheaper.
The possibility for the oil and gas industry to be actively engaged in the protection of marine biodiversity may be a way of offering presently unrepresented marine ecosystems some level of protection too. In general the industry’s infrastructure footprint is quite small. Major oil spills from exploration and production activities world-wide are relatively rare with just one occurring on the west coast of Australia. While the risk is low, the consequences can be high. Therefore implementing multiple protected areas is one way of ‘hedging our bets’.
In a region highly valuable to industry the costs of biodiversity protection will be high if we continue to see oil and gas interests as incompatible with conservation. But leaving these unique ecosystems without management and protection may cost us even more in the long term.
Hugh Possingham receives funding from The Australian Research Council, The National Environmental Research program and several NGOs. He is affiliated with The Wentworth Group, Trees For Life SA, BirdLife Australia and WWF Australia.
Cordelia Moore and Euan Harvey do not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article. They also have no relevant affiliations.
Marine protected areas aren’t doing their job. Photo: Charlievdb/Flickr
Marine protected areas have been created across the globe to stem the loss of biodiversity in our oceans. But are they working? Now, thanks to a six-year survey involving over one hundred divers, we know that the global system of marine protected areas still has much to achieve.
Problems out of sight
The marine environment lies out of sight and is expensive to survey, so its true condition is very poorly known. What we do know is that multiple threats — most notably introduced pests, climate change, fishing and pollution — are pervasive.
We also know that conditions are deteriorating. Numbers of many Australian marine species have collapsed since European settlement. Some species haven’t been seen for decades, such as the smooth handfish, which was once sufficiently abundant to be collected by early French naturalists visiting Australia but hasn’t been seen anywhere for more than 200 years.
If this were a mammal, bird, reptile, frog or plant, it would be listed under Commonwealth and state threatened species acts as extinct. As a marine fish, it has not been considered for any list.
We also know that marine species that build habitat for other species are declining. Coral cover across the Great Barrier Reef has been reduced by about 25% between 1986 and 2004. Global seagrass and mangrove cover have declined by 30% over the past century, with losses accelerating. And oyster reefs have largely disappeared worldwide, as have giant kelp forest ecosystems on the Tasmanian east coast.
Fishery catch statistics also show major population declines in commercially important species such as scallops, rock lobsters, barracouta, trumpeter, abalone, warehou, gemfish and sharks.
These snapshots all consistently indicate major detrimental change in our oceans.
Surveying the threats
Twenty years ago, in a bid to understand the magnitude of this change, I and my Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies colleague Neville Barrett began regularly surveying rocky reef communities in collaboration with management agencies across southern Australia. These surveys were focused inside and outside marine protected areas, to disentangle effects of fishing from broader environmental changes.
We found that each marine protected area was different. Recovery within protected areas depended on a variety of local factors, including protected area size and age, how much fishing had occurred prior to regulation, the type of regulations, and whether they were enforced.
To separate these individual factors properly required investigation of tens to hundreds of protected areas, many more than we could logistically cover with our limited scientific resources.
Coral reefs are the most diverse ecosystems in the ocean. Photo: Wilson Loo Kok Wee/Flickr
Enlisting citizen divers
This led to the idea of enlisting support from the recreational diving community, and our new study was born.
With pilot funding from the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities program, and on-ground direction from colleague Rick Stuart-Smith, we sought help from experienced recreational divers across Australia who are passionate about marine conservation.
More than 100 divers agreed to donate their time, learning scientific underwater survey techniques, using their weekends and holidays to collect new data, and spending long hours afterwards identifying species and entering data onto computer spreadsheets.
To facilitate this program, an independent organisation called Reef Life Survey was established. It aimed to train and support member divers during field surveys, and to distribute information collected to improve knowledge and management of marine species. An incredible amount has been achieved over the past six years through the generous efforts of Reef Life Survey divers.
Most importantly, we have established a quantitative baseline describing the current state of inshore biodiversity around Australia. Numbers of more than 2500 species of fish, seaweeds and invertebrates (such as lobsters, abalone, sea urchins and corals) at more than 1500 sites have been documented.
This is the largest marine ecological baseline for any continent worldwide. It provides an invaluable reference that can be referred to through the future for tracking impacts of climate change, pollution, introduced species, and fishing.
The Reef Life Survey baseline has also now extended globally through collaboration with scientists in 18 countries, and with additional survey data collected by trained volunteer divers during their overseas holidays.
Clownfish and anemone. Photo: Paul from www.Castaways.com.au/Flickr
Parks on paper, not in the ocean
Still the question remains: how effective are marine protected areas at conserving marine life?
We recently analysed data from 40 countries to understand better the underlying factors that make marine protected areas effective as conservation tools, with results published in the journal Nature today.
We found no difference between fish communities present in most of 87 marine protected areas studied worldwide, when compared with communities in fished areas with similar environmental conditions.
Many protected areas thus seem to be “paper parks” — lines on the map that fail to achieve desired conservation outcomes.
However, some protected areas are extremely effective, with massive numbers of large fish and extremely high conservation value. These effective protected areas are typified by the same recurring features: no fishing, well enforced, more than 10 years old, relatively large in area, and isolated from fished areas by habitat boundaries (deep water or sand).
Protected areas with these characteristics, such as Middleton Reef off northeastern New South Wales, had on average twice as many species of large fish per transect, eight times more large fish, and 20 times more sharks than fished areas.
Getting marine parks right
Management agencies around the world clearly need to focus on creating more of these effective protected areas. At the same time they need to alter the design and management of the many existing protected areas that aren’t working. The few conservation gems are presently hidden amongst protected areas that are ineffective because of inadequate regulations or poor enforcement.
We also need to improve broad-scale environmental management more generally, considering how fast our oceans are deteriorating outside of protected areas.
Fishing is one of the last direct connections between humanity and the natural world. As a fisher who supports fishing, I see no incongruity in advocating that 20% of the marine environment be placed in effective no-take protected areas. Leaving 80% open to fishing hardly qualifies as threatening fishers’ interests.
Among other benefits, including acting as irreplaceable scientific reference areas, protected areas provide some insurance for future generations against ecosystem collapse.
I have little doubt that 50 years from now fishers will regret the slow pace of developing effective marine protected areas. They will also bemoan consequences of blanket opposition against any protected areas by some politicians and industry lobbyists, and an over-reliance of fisheries managers on computer models that attempt to maximise economic returns with little margin for error in an era of change when model variables increasingly fall outside known bounds.
Graham Edgar has received funds from Commonwealth and State agencies for research activities associated with marine conservation. He fishes, and many years ago worked commercially as a deckhand for an abalone diver. His University of Tasmania job is part-time, and diving surveys for the global study described here were undertaken in his spare time as a volunteer for the Reef Life Survey Foundation. He is also a director of an environmental consulting company, Aquenal Pty Ltd.
Original story by Denise Carter and Kimberley Vlasic, The Cairns Post
ENVIRONMENTAL Defenders Office NQ set to launch push to give the Great Barrier Reef its own legal identity.
The Environmental Defenders' Office's Fergus Power wants to give the Great Barrier Reef its own legal entity. Photo: Tom Lee
The Environmental Defenders Office NQ in Cairns is launching a campaign on February 20 to give a legal identity to the Great Barrier Reef so it can be defended in court.
It follows the news Brisbane-based EDO Queensland is taking legal action on behalf of the North Queensland Conservation Council with the support of protest group GetUp Australia to the administrative appeals tribunal.
It is looking to overturn the decision to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil inside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
"It is time," principal solicitor of EDO NQ Fergus Power said, citing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's permit grant on Friday for North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation to dredge the harbour at Abbot Point near Bowen.
He fears the move increases the potential of UNESCO putting the Reef on its "endangered" list or taking it off its World Heritage list in June.
He is also concerned about perceived conflicts of interest within GBRMPA.
"Since the dumping decision, we have had overwhelming feedback from people that the Reef should have some capacity to speak for itself," Mr Power said.
He said this approach had not yet been used in Australia but there was a precedent in New Zealand where the government gave the Whanganui River a legal identity in August 2012, so it would be treated as a "person", with a legal standing.
"There are many ways that the legal personality for the Great Barrier Reef can be approached: trustees could be appointed to look after the natural ecosystem and act on behalf of the entity," Mr Power said.
"They would be respected groups (or people) who are devoted to the protection of the natural environment, or another simple way is for all people to have standing to protect the interest of the Reef.
"The Great Barrier Reef is beyond national parties, it should be held in trust for all the people of the world.
"We already grant rights to dead objects, and the Reef is a living thing."
The launch date of the campaign by EDO NQ a non-profit, non-government community legal centre is the United Nations World Day of Social Justice.
Marine programs co-ordinator of the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre Josh Coates said he supported the move.
"I think personifying the Reef is a good idea," said Mr Coates, who is also a marine biologist.
He said there was also a high level of community concern about a proposal to dredge more than five million cubic metres of mud to expand the shipping channel in Trinity Inlet.
The Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators could also appeal the Abbot Point decision on the grounds GBRMPA has failed to fulfil its obligations to conserve and protect the Reef.
"It has to go to the board, but I don't think we can afford to walk away from this," association executive officer Col McKenzie said.
"If the leadership of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority isn't prepared to enforce their act, it's time to replace that leadership."
Mr McKenzie said a move by UNESCO to list the reef as "World Heritage in Danger" would impact on tourist numbers and tourism operators in the Whitsundays were already experiencing a downturn due to poor visibility caused by suspended matter in the water.
A SPRINGWOOD man has been fined $10,000 in the Caboolture Magistrates Court after being found guilty of damaging protected marine plants to improve the view at his Pumicestone Passage property.
Canoeing on Pumicestone Passage.
Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol (QBFP) officer Vaughan Heath said the fine reflects the seriousness of the offence.
"Cutting down or destroying marine plants on Queensland shores is illegal and incredibly destructive to Queensland's fisheries resources," Mr Heath said.
"The Fisheries Act 1994 protects all marine plants in Queensland including mangroves, seagrass, salt couch, and in specific circumstances Melaleuca and Hibiscus species, regardless of whether marine plants are on private, leasehold or public lands, or alive or dead.
"It is illegal to:
• hedge, trim, lop or spray marine plants with herbicide
• remove marine plants for river views or other aesthetic reasons
• remove mangroves or salt couch from a beach or foreshore
• run machinery over marine plants
• fill tidal lands
• dump garden waste (e.g. grass clippings and pruning) onto tidal areas."
Mr Heath said the future sustainability of Queensland's recreational, commercial and indigenous fisheries was at stake if fish habitats were not protected.
"Even hedging can change the productivity of the mangroves and reduce the number of animals that live beneath the canopy due to excessive shading.
"We hope this prosecution will make people think twice about damaging protected habitat areas.
"Damaging marine plants can carry a maximum penalty of $330,000."
Residents are encouraged to help protect marine plants and report any damage to the 24 hour, toll-free Fishwatch hotline 1800 017 116.
For more information on marine plant protection, visit www.fisheries.qld.gov.au or call 13 25 23.
AMATEUR fishers have pledged to fight for as many green zones as possible to be opened to fishing after getting the go ahead from the State Government.
The move has been heavily criticised by University of Queensland ecologist and laureate fellow Hugh Possingham, who said research shows that green zones produced more and larger fish.
Sunfish chief executive Judy Lynne said it was not clear how much access would be sought but she had already received about 20 submissions – and the Mirapool green zone on Moreton Island was top of the list.
Green zones are the marine equivalent of national parks.
She said north Queensland and Great Sandy Marine Park fishers at Hervey Bay also opposed green zones in their areas.
National Parks Minister Steve Dickson announced during the Redcliffe by-election that recreational fishers could soon be able to fish at Scotts Point, Redcliffe, under a plan to change marine park zoning.
Premier Campbell Newman said he wanted to rezone 100m at Scotts Point to allow recreational fishing. It would become a special management area.
Mr Dickson has also called on fishermen to identify other green zones that they would like to fish.
“If there’s an area near you with good public access to the shoreline, where recreational fishing would have minimal impact on the environment, I urge you to tell your local MP,” he said.
The move has been heavily criticised by University of Queensland ecologist and laureate fellow Hugh Possingham, who said research showed that green zones produced more and larger fish.
“Larger fish have four to five times as many babies as fish half their size,” he said. “That’s why marine reserves are really good. It’s why recreational and professional fishers know to cluster at the edge of reserves because the fish they can catch there are much bigger than those in other areas.
“Opening up green zones defeats the purpose of fishers who want to catch more and bigger fish.”
Professor Possingham, who was on a scientific committee that helped determine bay zonings, called on Mr Dickson to reverse the decision.
Sunfish supported nursery areas being protected but believed many places that had been closed had little conservation value.
Ms Lynne said Sunfish supported nursery areas being protected but believed many places that had been closed had little conservation value.
Professor Possingham said recreational fishers already had ample fishing grounds, with access to 84 per cent of Moreton Bay.
Opening the beach at Scotts Point, it ensured fishers would be able to target species like whiting, flathead and bream in a prime area, leaving the rest of the zone as a protected area. This ensured the Government could say it had kept green zones even though critical areas were being fished.
Ms Lynne said Scott’s Point had no conservation value.
“We’re not prepared to accept that taking three or four fish has an impact,’’ she said.
Professor Possingham said the danger in recreational fishing was the cumulative impact which in some areas was so great that its take outweighed commercial fishing.
He said fishing in green zones had the potential to reduce positive results of protection.
A 2012 CSIRO Moreton Bay report says: “Although the new green zones have only been in place for approximately two years ... the average biomass of snapper, spangled emperor, redthroat emperor, black spot tusk fish, Maori rock cod and goldspot wrasse all increased in the new green zones.
“Changes to the marine park are still new and many of these species are long-lived, therefore the responses of populations within the new green zones may take many years to become fully evident.’’
Professor Possingham said it was odd that the Government would remove protection when good results had appeared so fast.
He said arguments that green zones led to impacts on camping and fishing shops and reduced boat sales were incorrect given growth in the industry.
Let us know what you think of fishing in green zones. Leave your comments below
OUR Great Sandy Strait was celebrated on World Wetlands Day in Hervey Bay on Sunday.
Environmental enthusiasts gathered at the Fraser Coast Discovery Sphere, where the day's theme was What Would we do Without our Wetlands?
The family friendly day out was a Fraser Coast Opportunities and Burnett Mary Regional Group collaboration.
Fraser Coast Mayor Gerard O'Connell said the Fraser Coast was a precious and special place.
"We need to preserve the environment but allow for growth," Cr O'Connell said.
FCO general manager David Spear said local iconic species, such as dugongs, marine turtles and even humpback whales, relied on the Great Sandy Strait for their survival.
FRIDAY and Saturday's king tide and flooding led to concerns that a wall at the QAL red mud dam had been breached on Saturday morning.
However, according to Rio Tinto there was no breach.
It's believed the discolouration of water coming down the Boyne River was from a residential subdivision development close to the river further upstream.
Big waves are energetically costly for fish, and there are more big waves than ever. The good news is that fish might be able to adapt.
Shiner surfperch, Cymatogaster aggregate, the study species. Photo: Ross Robertson
“There has been a lot of recent work in oceanography documenting the fact that waves are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change,” says Mr Dominique Roche, PhD candidate from the Research School of Biology. “The habitats that fish live in are changing.”
“This is not a localised problem, but something that is documented globally,” adds Ms Sandra Binning, also a PhD candidate in the Research School of Biology.
Mr Roche and Ms Binning are co-authors on a study documenting the energy it takes for fish to swim through large, intense waves. Specifically, they focused on fish that swim with their arm, or pectoral fins, which are very common on both rocky and coral reefs.
“By controlling water flow in an experimental chamber with the help of a computer, we were able to replicate oscillations in the water flow like in a wave pool,” explains Mr Roche.
“We looked at how much energy the fish consumed while swimming without waves, in conditions with small waves, and in conditions with large waves. The idea was to compare the amount of energy that fish consume while swimming in these three conditions when their average swimming speed was exactly the same.”
Mr Roche and Ms Binning found that it’s a lot more energetically demanding for fish to deal with large fluctuations in water speed and wave height.
“It’s harder to constantly switch speeds than it is to remain at a constant speed, like a runner changing between running and walking during interval training versus a steady jog. Well, it’s the same for swimming fish,” says Mr Roche.
“Things could get tough for fish in windy, exposed habitats if waves get stronger with changing climate. But there may be a silver lining,” says Ms Binning.
“In the swim chamber, when the water flow increased, fish had to beat their fins faster to keep up. But when the water flow slowed down, some fish took advantage and rode the wave. Essentially, rather than beating their fins frantically, these fish used the momentum that they had gained while speeding up to glide and save energy.
“This means that some individuals are better at dealing with waves than others, and that there is hope for populations to adapt their swimming behavior to potentially changing conditions in the future,” concludes Mr Roche.
SUNSHINE Coast conservation groups have laid out the red carpet for thousands of turtle hatchlings due to hit local beaches in coming weeks.
Volunteers collected 220kg of rubbish yesterday, after scouring the sand from Shelly Beach to Buddina, and cleaning up the waterway around La Balsa Park.
Sunshine Coast Turtle Care, Reef Check Australia, Sunshine Coast Council, UnderWater World SEA LIFE Mooloolaba and members of the public teamed up for the first time to clean up for the turtle hatchlings.
Council conservation officer Kate Winter said cigarette butts, fishing debris, cans, clothing and hard plastics, including water bottles, were the most common items found.
"I truly am surprised by the amount that has come up here. It's far greater than I had expected," she said.
Ms Winter said the collection of hard plastics was the focus of yesterday's effort.
"We want to make sure we get as many hatchlings out to the water and in 30 years back to our beaches as nesting turtles," she said.
"Those hard plastics float on the surface and in the pelagic phase of a turtle's life, that's when they're feeding on the surface."
There are 23 nests from Shelly Beach to Buddina, each producing between 100 and 200 hatchlings in the next two months.
The first is due in the next couple of days.
UnderWater World animal health man-ager Emily Thomas said the last thing they wanted was for the turtles to head out into a "big sea of rubbish".
Reef Check Australia community engagement officer Jodi Salmond donned her diving gear to clean up the Mooloolah River mouth from La Balsa Park.
She came ashore with bags of fishing debris, tackle, broken glass, cans and lots of degradable plastic bags caught among the rocks.
"It's important to have an idea of what's not just on the beach but what's making its way into the water," she said.
The clean-up information will be collated into the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database.
"When they autopsy turtles, we find out what's in their guts and then we start to see what's on the land and what's in the water," Miss Salmond said.
"We can start to source track where these things are coming from and how we can make real differences."
Wayne Foster, from Golden Beach, was among the lay volunteers, cleaning up the northern tip of Bribie Island after finding a few turtle nests on his daily walk.
"A lot of people come and have a lovely day, but they'll always leave two or three pieces behind," he said.
"We try and go across and if we see something we'll pick it up and bring it back."
