Feature Article: Reef Craft makes waves for offsets
We're incredibly proud to be featured recently in The West Business newspaper. This is just the beginning for us. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported Reef Craft so far, our investors, researchers, collaborators, and the wider community. Your support is helping turn an ambitious vision into reality.
Below is an extract from The West Business Newspaper, written by Ryan Johnson.
Read more at: https://thewest.com.au/business/reef-craft-dives-into-was-marine-offset-market-with-first-coral-transplant-c-22608330
Reef Craft makes waves for offsets
Photo Caption: Cambell Nalder, John Poynton, Dean Nalder, Nichola Zed and Tullem McKiever. Picture: Jackson Flindell
Article:
Reef Craft has fixed its first coral to a limestone pyramid off Coogee, beginning the test of whether the small WA start-up can turn artificial reefs into a service governments and heavy industry will buy.
The company has set three structures in Cockburn Sound and says it is the first operator to secure both a marine lease and regulatory approval for a dedicated reef restoration farm in the area.
But while Reef Craft has coral in the water and a heavy-weight board - chaired by Dean Nalder and including investment banker John Poynton and resources executive Nichola Zed - it is yet to win a commercial contract.
"Our immediate challenge is to turn the life gathering around the pyramids into measurable evidence that regulators and paying customers will accept," said Mr Nalder, the former WA minister for transport, finance and agriculture.
Federal reforms could widen its market by giving greater legal weight to "like-for-like" environmental offsets.
Offsets are used to compensate for significant environmental harm that remains
after a developer has first tried to avoid and reduce it.
But under the Government's proposed new rules, developers causing residual significant harm to a protected environmental matter would generally need to restore or conserve the same feature, attribute or habitat.
Reef Craft co-founder Tullem McKiever said "if a development affected a critical reef
environment in Cockburn Sound, the company should not be able to offset that damage by funding a rainforest project in Queensland".
"The offset needs to be more local and directly connected to the habitat affected," he said.
Mr. Nalder expects public infrastructure agencies to be among Reef Craft's earliest
prospective customers.
"You have Westport, the outer harbour development and the defence precinct, along with the impacts those developments may have throughout Cockburn Sound," he said.
WA's industrial coastline provides a wider pool of potential customers, although proponents face heavy scrutiny over any damage and proposed remedy.
Concerns about potential damage to marine habitat have featured in major WA projects, including dredging for Chevron's Gorgon development at Barrow Island and a cargo wharf extension at the Port of Dampier.
Reef Craft has no link to those projects but Mr Nalder said they offered solutions
to companies facing marine impacts.
"We can support those companies as they seek approval and community support for their projects," he said.
That prospect depends on Reef Craft first proving its own model.
Each pyramid is assembled from hollow 27kg blocks that form caves and passages for marine life.
The University of Western Australia's Marine Futures Lab is measuring the ecological response, including fish activity, coral growth and changes around the structures.
Reef Craft needs that work to establish whether the reefs produce environmental gains strong enough for regulators to recognise and customers to purchase.
