The Role of Underwater Museums in Fostering Environmental Sustainability

Museums offer significant value by preserving cultural heritage, fostering education and intellectual curiosity, and promoting social interaction, contributing to economic development and environmental sustainability. Underwater museums are relatively new and innovative and the Museum of Underwater Art, (MOUA) installed in 2017 in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, offers an inspiring and educational experience that encourages positive conversations and garners significant media attention. Through a blend of art and science, MOUA provides a unique educational opportunity and initiates reef conversations on the challenging issues of citizen science, climate change, and coral bleaching, inviting snorkelers, divers, and the general community to protect the Great Barrier Reef. The MOUA asset is valued at $4 M and generates approximately $100 K per year from grants and earned income. The MOUA sculptures are seen by approximately 1.5 M people per year with the highest interactions associated with The Ocean Siren sculpture and approximately four thousand snorkelers and SCUBA divers a year visit the remote Coral Greenhouse and Ocean Sentinels sculptures at John Brewer Reef on commercial tourism trips. The MOUA has a large media reach of over 22 million. The Museum of Underwater Art demonstrates how art and culture can amplify reef conservation, achieving global research and community engagement beyond its small scale. This case study also exposes gaps in how ocean sustainability is measured across reef organizations and highlights the methodologies to fulfill those knowledge gaps. Our paper assesses Key Performance Indicators across other institutions and proposes methods to shift and improve conservation paradigms by the inclusion of cultural storytelling, citizen science, education, and carbon neutral events.