In a win for people and the environment, new economic modelling from James Cook University researchers reveals that a five-million-dollar investment to control crown-of-thorns (CoTS) starfish numbers in the Cairns region created 61 new jobs and generated $20 million of economic activity.
Along with cyclones and bleaching, CoTS outbreaks are one of the big causes of coral cover loss. The CoTS program is designed around controlling starfish numbers through lethal injection - thereby avoiding big population explosions.
Researchers found that the $5.5 million CoTS program in the Cairns Region in Far North Queensland in 2024-2025 generated a total economic output of about $20 million, including direct effects ($10.5 million), supply-chain effects ($4.9 million), and consumption effects ($4.8 million).
The CoTS program supported 61 full-time equivalent jobs, comprising 34.4 direct jobs, 13.5 supply-chain jobs, and 13.4 consumption-effect jobs.
"This program does more than protecting coral on the Great Barrier Reef - it employs young workers and delivers real financial and job-creation flow-on effects into the community, proving that investing in conservation generates multiple positive and measurable outcomes for the community," said one of the research paper's co-authors and CoTS program manager from the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, Dr Rickard Abom.
Dr Henry Bartelet, who led the research while working as a research fellow at James Cook University's Cairns Institute, explained that it was important to be able to quantify the socio-economic impacts of marine interventions.
"If we were talking about resource projects like coal mines, this sort of analysis is standard. But for reef interventions, this type of economic analysis hasn't been done in Australia before," he said.
"We wanted to know - when this money gets spent, how much actually sticks around in the community?
"This knowledge will assist policy makers in designing and implementing reef interventions, like the CoTS program."
The research showed that the CoTS program's economic benefits were spread broadly across the Cairns region.
"One of the biggest benefits is that most of the money goes to actual workers … the people doing the activities in the water," Dr Bartelet said.
"But you also have the supplies - things like fuel, food and beverages, and administrative staff that run the operations from the land. Maintenance of the boats also occurs locally, supporting the Cairns boat manufacturing sector.
"It's not just the direct jobs that you're creating, it's also those additional jobs that the activity itself generates."
Professor Stewart Lockie, who co-authored the research, explained that the Cairns-based CoTS program funding was spent locally and had a nice economic multiplier.
"Regional communities need jobs, and they need professional jobs that create longer-term career opportunities," he said.
"We now have the economic evidence to show that programs like this create employment pathways for people."
The research published in the journal Marine Policy used well-established input-output modelling methodology to determine the direct regional economic benefits arising from the Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (CoTS) program.
It was co-authored by members of the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre and INLOC, and funded through a partnership between the Australian Government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
CoTS management is coordinated by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) as part of the Australian Government's Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan. In Cairns, the CoTS program is coordinated by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre and contracted out to a local marine operator (INLOC).
