Marine Protected Areas

National coordination

The Commonwealth Marine Protected Areas Program helps to coordinate the establishment of the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) across Australia's Commonwealth, State and Territory jurisdictions.

Each jurisdiction has its own laws and processes for establishing and managing marine protected areas. The Commonwealth, State and Northern Territory have developed independent processes for establishing representative systems of marine protected areas in the marine areas for which they are responsible.

During the 1990s the Commonwealth Government provided funding under the Oceans Rescue 2000 and Natural Heritage Trust's Coasts and Cleans Seas programs to facilitate the establishment of the NRSMPA in the States and Northern Territory.

The Commonwealth Marine Protected Areas Program continues to support the following initiatives that help to coordinate processes for establishing and managing marine protected areas nationally.

Marine Protected Area Working Group

The Marine Protected Area Working Group is the only national committee that enables the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments to coordinate the development of policy and planning related to the establishment of the NRSMPA.

NRSMPA publications

The national framework for establishing the NRSMPA comprises:

• The Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia Version 4 (IMCRA)
• Guidelines for Establishing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas
• Strategic Plan of Action for the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas

See also:

• More about NRSMPA framework publications
• List of NRSMPA publications

Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD)

CAPAD is a database containing information on all protected areas in Australia.