This project focuses on relationships between socio-economic systems and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It comprises three interrelated activities to investigate: 1. Resident and tourist views about the relative ‘value’ of key ecosystem services that are provided by the reef. Researchers will design, distribute and analyse the results of a survey instrument to assess the relative value of different goods and services produced by the GBR to stakeholder groups using both traditional money-based valuation techniques and Larson’s non-monetary based technique. 2. Tourist views about the relative value of key attributes of reef health, and the likely consequence if reef health deteriorates such as fewer visits and less expenditure. 3. Researchers will develop proxies for rainfall, water quality, land use and economy at the catchment scale. Analyses of these data will be used to determine the extent to which variations in beef prices, the exchange rate and other socio-economic variables (in conjunction with biophysical variables) influence water quality in the GBR lagoon.

The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) is famous for its wildlife, biodiversity and natural beauty, but none of these important assets are bought or sold in the market place, so none are explicitly ‘valued’ with a price. Recognising that absence of price does not mean absence of value, this project seeks to improve our understanding of the importance of these non-market ‘values’ to a variety of different stakeholders. How important is a beautiful view or a cassowary to the community, to tourists and to the tourism industry? How would people feel if there fewer (or more) opportunities to enjoy those beautiful views or to observe these charismatic birds? The project will provide environmental managers throughout the world with an illustrated, easy to understand, means of assessing the importance of these types of non-market values to a variety of different stakeholder groups in World Heritage listed forests and other scenic environments. This project will: 1. Develop a survey to assess the relative importance of core 'values' of the WTWHA (e.g. cassowaries, mahogany sugar gliders, waterfalls, aesthetics) with other ‘values’ (e.g. development of roads, employment, or income) so that managers are able to assess trade-offs between core WTWHA attributes and other ‘values’. 2. Distribute the questionaire to residents (householders) throughout the WTWHA and to tourists at the Cairns airport at different times of the year (to control for seasonality of data) in the form of an exit survey; 3. To analyse the results using multivariate analysis to measure the satisfaction and relative value across different stakeholder groups and to use insights from this analysis to identify priorities for conservation and marketing.