About GBRRE

John Rumney

John has over twenty years of offshore research tourism and nature documentary experience over the Great Barrier Reef with Eye to Eye Marine Encounters, Undersea Explorer and others. John brings the operations, network, and image of Eye to Eye Marine Encounters to GBRRE. He is an experienced skipper and engineer with extensive knowledge of vessels and the Great Barrier Reef. John is a renowned leader in marine research tourism, nature documentary and offshore marine research logistics and has a large network that can be called on to support and staff GBRRE.

In 2011, Eye to Eye Marine Encounters’s Minke Whale program recently won the environmental and people’s choice awards at the Cairns Regional Council’s tropical innovation awards. Their Far Northern Expedition was also selected as a National Geographic Tour of a life time in 2011. John was the skipper and guide for the BBC’s Great Barrier Reef Documentary released in 2012.

Tim North

Tim has extensive marine ecotourism business and offshore logistics success as Owner and Operator of Reef Magic Cruises in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. He is an experienced skipper and engineer with extensive knowledge of vessel operation and the Great Barrier Reef. He was CEO and skipper on the Quest vessel for three year undertaking marine exploration and nature documentaries across the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere. He has well-developed marine industry and logistical support networks that will support GBRRE.

Dr. Dean Miller

Dr. Dean Miller specialises in travelling the world to research and film animals in the most remote, inhospitable and interesting corners. His am is to excite, inspire and challenge people about our amazing natural world. Dean’s work has taken him from the tropics to the poles, reefs to rainforest, ocean depths to mountaintops and everything in-between. I have walked with polar bears, dived with tiger sharks, lived with seals, come eye to eye with whales, marched with penguins and flown with eagles.

Dean’s PhD through the James Cook University in the early 2000s studied the social and economic value of specific Great Barrier Reef species and habitats for their sustainable long-term use by tourism, as opposed to extractive uses of these areas like fishing or collecting. Consequently many of the world famous dive sites in the Ribbon Reef region of the Great Barrier Reef that were open to fishing became protected. The study’s outcomes are used in other coral reef areas around the world to demonstrate that well managed tourism is a long-term sustainable option for economic growth as opposed to short-term extractive uses of the same site.

Dean’s scientific expeditions include;

• Macquarie Island – Sub-Antarctic, Australia
• Many Dwarf Minke Whales expeditions – Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Many Undersea Explorer expeditions – Great Barrier Reef and Osprey Reef, Australia
• Reef Check Australia – Great Barrier Reef, Australia and Vanuatu
• West New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Dean’s filming expeditions include;

• Natures Warzone, Raine Island, Australia
• Mystery Of the Shark Coast, East Coast, Australia
• Oceans – Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Macquarie Island , Sub-Antarctic, Australia
• Dwarf Minke Whales , Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• River Monsters , Kimberley, Australia
• Antarctica and Sub-Antarctic Islands
• Wrangel Island , Russian High Arctic

Dr. Peter Wood

Dr. Peter Wood is a post doctoral researcher with the James Cook University (JCU) studying markets and products for offshore research tourism over the Great Barrier Reef. Since June 2012, Peter has been the Secretary of Wildlife Tourism Australia (www.wildlifetourism.org.au).   Peter has supported Eye to Eye Marine Encounters  in Port Douglas with marketing and advanced ecotourism accreditation since 2009. He completed a PhD on marine research tourism at JCU in 2010.