This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: In a win for people and the environment, new economic modeling from James Cook University researchers reveals that a $5 million investment to control crown-of-thorns (CoTS) starfish numbers in the Cairns region created 61 new jobs and generated $20 million in economic activity. The work is published in the journal Marine Policy.
Along with cyclones and bleaching, CoTS outbreaks are one of the major causes of coral cover loss. The CoTS program is designed to control starfish numbers through lethal injection—thereby avoiding large population explosions. Researchers found that the $5.5 million CoTS program in the Cairns region of 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 protect 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 Dr. Rickard Abom, one of the research paper's co-authors and CoTS program manager at the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre.
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 quantify the socioeconomic 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 policymakers 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," Bartelet said.
"But you also have the supplies—things like fuel, food and beverages, and administrative staff that run the operations from 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 an economic multiplier.
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