A program that has had some success eradicating the crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), one of the biggest threats to the Great Barrier Reef, needs more funding to tackle the growing numbers.

Since 2010, the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO) in far north Queensland has been training disadvantaged young people to become divers and overseeing a program to destroy the COTS.

They have removed about 400,000 of the starfish in the past three years, but with an estimated 11 million along Queensland's east coast which could explode to as many as 60 million over the next five years according to the World Wildlife Fund, they need more funds.

AMPTO's Steve Moon said of the 125 people to have completed the program, 85 per cent had since gone into full-time employment.

"It's very scary to think what could have happened without this opportunity," he said.

"I mean we take on people from so many varied backgrounds and we're talking about backgrounds of family abuse, police trouble, criminal activities, all those sorts of things."

The program receives support from the Queensland Government and Ports North, with the majority of funding for the control program coming from the Federal Government.

But Mr Moon said funding constraints meant it only had the capacity to remove COTS from the main tourist sites off Cairns and Port Douglas in far north Queensland.

"We understand there is a need to do a lot of research into COTS activities and control but at the same time we do actually need to implement control measures to ensure that there is something to conduct research on," he said.

Program gives young people new lease of life

Matt Trueman was among the first to graduate from the program.

"We go out for 10 days at a time to different target areas along the reef around the Cairns area, doing basically a search and destroy is what they call it," he said.

"You go out, find the COTS and give them a quick injection and then over a course of a day or so they get eaten by all the marine life."

He said he noticed a big difference at the tourist sites they had visited since the program began.

Crown-of-thorns divers Max Sailor and Catherine Hackett-Brooks among 125 people to successfully complete the program. ( ABC News: Kirsty Nancarrow )

"I've been to places where the first time we visit we'll be pulling off thousands of COTS in a day," he said.

"You pull of a couple of thousand and now we're going back there, we might be getting 100.

Thursday Island's Max Sailor went through the six-month dive training program last year and said the experience had turned his life around.

"It changed heaps of things, made new friends, even ... changed my lifestyle, everything financially, and it helped me a lot," he said.

The next intake of 10 recruits will begin the program in February.