Corporate sponsors are being invited to fund data streaming and web hosting for images from a live 'reefcam' viewing a coral reef at Middle Island, just north of Great Keppel Island near Rockhampton...

CQUniversity reef researcher Dr Alison Jones is part of a community reef monitoring project* which has established the reefcam and which is open to sponsor support.

LINK for a video presentation about 'reefcam' 

"Middle Island reefcam is located several metres below the surface on coral reef adjacent to the Green Zone at Middle Island," Dr Jones says.

"The camera is capable of streaming live video images of the reef to the web for access by the community, schools and tourism organisations.

"Similar still image cameras have been installed at reef locations by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, but the amount of bandwidth and data upload capacity for live video normally prohibits streaming live video imagery to the web.

"Our group is looking for a corporate sponsor for the live reef data streaming and web hosting. This is a great opportunity for an organisation to sponsor and supply the first live video images to the world community for use as an education tool."

Dr Jones says the camera is powered by a single cable to a solar powered battery supplied by Solarain from Rockhampton. Images can be seen at night, although only in black and white because of the lack of sunlight. The video stream is sent wirelessly to a router and data storage unit on Great Keppel Island via a Freenet Access Point.

The camera is housed in a custom-built housing made by Tom Sjulund from Yeppoon and the gear includes a special wiper to prevent build-up of algae and crustaceans on the window.

"The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority permitted the installation of the camera, which can be used to monitor the status of the reef remotely and to observe the timing of events such as coral spawning, coral bleaching and floods.

"The website will provide a great opportunity for advertisement of a corporate message. The images can also be used by local tourism organisations to promote visitors to the Capricorn Coast region. For instance, visitors to Middle Island can snorkel in front of the camera and wave at their friends and family in other parts of the world who are not visiting the Great Barrier Reef.

"With local tourism struggling to survive recently, the living images of beautiful fish and corals will provide an incentive to visit the Capricorn Coast region and the Keppel Bay Islands. It is hoped that the images will promote the Keppels to the rest of the world as one of the closest inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef coast.

"At present the images are being downloaded to a data storage unit on Great Keppel Island but from here the group hopes to go worldwide. For this we need a corporate sponsor to fund the data streaming and web hosting for the imagery. We hope that that this will be the first of many such reef cameras installed around the Keppel Bay Islands.

* Head Under Water is a community reef monitoring project based in Central Queensland. Head Under Water provides opportunities for members of the local Central Queensland community to participate in reef monitoring through supervised field trips and educational days. For more information: http://www.cccqld.org.au/huw.html