Brief report from the Outreach Working Group

The Outreach Working Group had an interesting April-Meeting with Dominic McAfee from Australia, giving insights in the socio-ecological restoration of Australia´s lost reefs. Taking the opportunity of the meeting, the Outreach Working Group discussed new meeting structures and other group items.

Following the consultation of the group members via email, changes in the meeting structure of the NORA Outreach Group were discussed at the April-Meeting. The most important changes include:

  • Meetings will be held every 4-5 months instead of bimonthly (next meeting will be in September 2022).
  • Meetings will be held in the afternoon (on trial basis).
  • These meetings will of course still be open for all interested members of the Outreach group and if possible, focus on common topics of outreach work in restoration projects, e.g. social media.
  • There will be “task groups” focusing on specific projects, e.g. a NORA video clip explaining restoration, who are meeting according to what is needed within the group. If you are interested in joining or have an idea of a product which could be produced this way, please get in touch with corina.peter@awi.de

In addition, we announce that there are now possibilities to link specific outreach materials/homepages etc. directly from the NORA homepage (https://noraeurope.eu/nora-outreach-group-links/ ) to the project page. If you have any links for this – please get in touch! 

At the April-meeting of the NORA Outreach Group, Dominic McAfee presented insights into the research and outreach work of the oyster restoration projects from South Australia. Public forums, public decision-making on reef locations, and access to live restoration video streams have helped generate widespread social license for oyster reef restoration. It was really motivating to see the success and learn more about their boosting strategies to accelerate the restoration process.

The talk was recorded and is available upon request from corina.peter@awi.de.