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Marine Protected Areas
The Marine Protected Areas 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.
The Working Group is a supporting subsidiary body of the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC). Members of the Working Group are from Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies responsible for marine conservation and fisheries management. The Commonwealth Marine Protected Areas Program provides secretariat support for the Working Group.
Since 1992 the Working Group and its predecessors have coordinated the development of nationally agreed planning and policy frameworks and technical matters (e.g. bioregional assessments) associated with developing the NRSMPA. It is however the responsibility of each jurisdiction to establish marine protected areas within waters under their control.
The origins of the Working Group date to the early 1990s. On 16 May 1992 government ministers of the of the (then) Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council resolved to establish a National Advisory Committee on Marine Protected Areas to co-ordinate the development of a national system of representative marine protected areas and to provide a mechanism for Commonwealth, State and Territory governments to exchange information and expertise. This Committee later became the Task Force on Marine Protected Areas, and later the Working Group on Marine Protected Areas and its terms of reference were revised to focus on the development and implementation of national framework for establishing the NRSMPA.
