OMER Momentum Builds: Expanding Research, Monitoring and Stewardship
The Otways Marine Ecosystem Resilience (OMER) Initiative continues to gather momentum, with several exciting funding successes helping expand the program from long-term ecological monitoring into community-led stewardship and conservation action.
Over the past few months, OMER has secured support from three complementary funding streams, each helping to build a different part of the program. The first is $50,000 through the Nature Impact Collective (NIC), which will support the continued delivery and expansion of OMER's ecological monitoring program. This funding enables us to return to our existing long-term monitoring sites while expanding to new locations along the Great Ocean Road coastline, growing the network to around 20 intertidal and subtidal monitoring sites. Together, these surveys will provide one of the region's most comprehensive community-supported datasets, helping track the health and resilience of our marine ecosystems over time.
We're also thrilled to have received notification on 13 July that OMER was awarded $10,000 through Coastcare Victoria to pilot the next stage of the program—turning ecological knowledge into community stewardship. This project will deliver a series of Community Stewardship Workshops, bringing together Traditional Owners, local volunteers, community members and coastal managers to explore OMER's monitoring findings alongside local and cultural knowledge. Together, we'll identify what the results mean for local stretches of coastline and explore practical, place-based actions that help protect and restore these important marine environments. The aim is simple: to ensure the knowledge generated through OMER supports informed local decision-making and lasting stewardship.
We're also incredibly grateful for the overwhelming support shown during the Conservation Ecology Centre's End of Financial Year fundraising appeal, which raised close to $50,000 to support conservation projects like OMER. Every donation, large or small, helps strengthen the program by supporting meaningful action on the ground that make this work possible. Perhaps most importantly, your generosity helps us leverage opportunities like these. Community support demonstrates that people care deeply about the future of our coastline, giving funding partners confidence to invest in long-term conservation and allowing OMER to continue growing in both scale and impact.
Planning is now well underway for the next OMER survey season, beginning this November 2026. We're looking forward to diving back into the water together, revisiting our long-term monitoring sites and expanding into new locations along this magnificent coastline. Volunteers will once again play a vital role in intertidal surveys, subtidal snorkel monitoring and helping build one of the region's most valuable long-term marine datasets. Whether you've volunteered with us before or are looking to get involved for the first time, we'd love to have you join us. Keep an eye on our newsletters and social media channels for upcoming survey dates and volunteer opportunities, and sign up to become a steward for your coast.
To everyone who has volunteered, partnered with us, donated or supported the OMER initiative in any way, Thank you. Together, we're building more than a monitoring program. We're building a community of people committed to understanding, caring for and protecting the Great Ocean Road's marine ecosystems, ensuring this extraordinary coastline remains resilient for generations to come.
