This paper will present and discuss a partnership that has developed between the Indigenous Partnership Team (Australian Institute of Marine Sciences) and a team of social researchers (CSIRO) to co-develop a process for the development of a Traditional Owner-led biocultural framework. The intention, in the first instance, is that the framework will be used by Traditional Owners to assess the risks and opportunities of potential future deployment of Reef Restoration and Adaptation technologies on their Cultural and their sea Country, and to inform future decision making in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. After locating the work in far north Queensland, we will outline the biocultural framework project and the central role of partnerships. We will discuss the structures and processes that we have used to develop the partnership, including, for example, enabling knowledge exchange, slowly building rapport and trust, focusing on the importance of free and prior informed consent and the imperative to acknowledge and protect Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property as well as the IP of the social researchers. We will end with some reflections on the importance of genuine partnerships in research and action to support Indigenous-led decision making in marine environments.