Crown-of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) outbreaks are becoming so frequent that reefs don’t have time to recover from one before the next arrives. Evidence indicates that improving water quality by preventing runoff onto the reef can bring COTS reproduction back to natural levels, yet government targets for reef water quality being missed by a wide margin.
WWF Australia hopes to raise awareness of the problem and its potentially devastating environmental and economic consequences, and to encourage the government to invest the resources to meet their own targets.
This booklet needed to introduce readers to the way outbreaks occur and then present the research and the processes that show the need to restrict runoff. These involve many different issues and inputs, so explaining them in a clear yet thorough way was a challenge.
By creating a number of infographics and by presenting the research in an unembellished, step-by-step way, the issue was made comprehensible.
The booklet gained a range of media attention and helped clarify some of the contentious issues around this major problem.
