Community Action Plan (CAP) 2023

Townsville making change for the Reef

Together with partners Reef Ecologic, we’re co-leading the development of a Townsville Community Action Plan (CAP) with a focus on the health of local waterways and environments that ultimately impact upon the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

The CAP connects community aspirations with regional and reef-wide priorities, then creates projects for coordinated, community- and Traditional Owner-led action.

Once approved, projects that are generated from the 2023 Townsville CAP will receive seed funding from the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

“This is a chance for Townsville to point at change it wants to make, and then to see it happen,” says our Executive Officer, Kara-Mae Coulter-Atkins.

Our CAP is part of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Community Action Plan Program. Many communities along the length of the Great Barrier Reef have created and are delivering similar CAPs which are turbo-charging the positive impact that community action has for the Reef and for people.

Priority issues identified for the Townsville 2023 CAP

Thanks to workshops, events, and consultation in late 2022 and early 2023, the Townsville community has decided to focus its CAP on two priority issues:

  • Stormwater runoff and erosion control; and
  • Climate change and its impacts on our waterways and Reef.

Get involved in the CAP process

Any member of the Townsville and Dry Tropics community can participate in CAP discussions, development, and delivery. Contact us at any time to get involved.

  • Steps completed: Consult the community to identify what it believes to be the most important issues.
  • Steps underway: Invite the community to submit feedback, ideas, and potential projects and actions to form roadmaps for addressing the priority issues.
  • Next step: Finalise the proposed roadmaps and define the who, how, and when of the projects that could be successfully implemented.

“Through the CAP process we develop ‘shovel-ready’ roadmaps,” says Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters Executive Officer, Kara-Mae Coulter-Atkins.

“This means we work together to create plans for projects that have clear objectives, actions, owners, budgets, contributors, and timelines.’’

“The CAP empowers the Townsville community to take real action on issues it believes are important, while also raising awareness about how our waterways, Reef, and people are critically interconnected.”

The CAP process follows the globally recognised Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation and the Collective Impact Frameworks.

Updates about progress on the 2023 Townsville CAP will be shared on this page.

Learn more about the Community Action Plan Program of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation here.

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