Still image of hard coral taken during underwater visual census surveys in the Houtman Abrolhos islands of Western Australia in 2008 as part of the Reef Life Survey program. The Reef Life Survey program (http://reeflifesurvey.com/) is a volunteer network of highly trained divers, and is a product of the CERF Major Projects funding that facilitated a cost-effective citizen science contribution to inventory and monitoring of shallow water marine environments. The RLS program has been further facilitated within the NERP Hub, describing biodiversity patterns at a national and global scale, as well as providing critical baseline data from areas such as the new Coral Sea Marine Park, from Ashmore Reef, the Great Barrier Reef and other AMP's such as the Cod Hole and Pimpernel Rock in NSW.