Marine Protected Areas
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Australia's governments are working together to set up a National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA) throughout our entire marine jurisdiction.
Australia is committed to the protection of marine biodiversity and ecological processes, and the sustainable use of marine resources through the principles and goals of ecologically sustainable development.
In the early 1990s Australian governments identified a need to protect representative examples of the full range of marine ecosystems and habitats in marine protected areas. They agreed to establish a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of protected areas covering Australia's exclusive economic zone.
The system aims to contribute to the long-term ecological viability of marine and estuarine systems, to maintain ecological processes and systems, and to protect Australia's biological diversity at all levels.
The NRSMPA
Ultimately the goal of the NRSMPA will protect marine areas that represent all major ecological regions and the communities of plants and animals they contain.
The commitment to the primary goal of biodiversity conservation means that marine protected areas within the NRSMPA provide a higher level of protection than is generally achieved in surrounding waters.
The establishment of a representative system of protected areas is widely regarded, both nationally and internationally, as one of the most effective mechanisms for protecting biodiversity while permitting sustainable use of natural resources. Networks of marine protected areas protect the environment at regional scales in the same way that individual marine protected areas protect the environment at local scales. Networks are more resilient to human pressures than isolated, individual marine protected areas.
The NRSMPA recognises and validates the contributions to biodiversity conservation by different types of managed areas. It allows performance indicators for marine biodiversity to be developed and applied across the range of marine managed areas.
As at 2004 the NRSMPA covered approximately 64,800,000 hectares or 7% of Australia's marine jurisdiction, excluding the Australian Antarctic Territory. The Australian marine area is the area shown on the map below delineated by the dashed blue line. From the coastline to the limit of the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone, including external territories but not the Australian Antarctic Territory, this area is just over 900,000,000 hectares.
Red areas - marine protected areas administered by State and Northern Territory Governments
Blue areas - marine protected areas administered by the Commonwealth Government
Source: Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2004.
The primary goal of the NRSMPA is to establish and manage a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of marine protected areas to contribute to the long-term ecological viability of marine and estuarine systems, to maintain ecological processes and systems, and to protect Australia's biological diversity at all levels.
The following secondary goals are designed to be compatible with the primary goal
The goals of the NRSMPA relate primarily to the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable and equitable management of human usage. However, the marine protected areas that make up the NRSMPA may also protect and manage many other important geological, archaeological, historical and cultural attributes.
The establishment of the NRSMPA helps to implement international and national agreements and strategies.
The NRSMPA helps to meet Australia's responsibilities and obligations as a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the major components of the Jakarta Mandate developed under that Convention. Australia signed the Convention on World Environment Day, 5 June 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and subsequently ratified it on 18 June 1993. It came into force on 29 December 1993.
The Convention requires all member nations to, among other things, establish a system of protected areas and to develop guidelines for the selection, establishment and management of protected areas. The Convention recognises that protected areas are not the only mechanism for conserving biodiversity but that they are an important element of the overall approach. The Convention introduced the phrase 'comprehensive, adequate and representative' (CAR) reserves.
Concern about the over-exploitation of marine biodiversity resulted in the marine environment being one of the first significant issues to be addressed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. In Jakarta 1995, at a Conference of the Parties to Convention on Biological Diversity, Australia signed the Jakarta Mandate on Marine and Coastal Biological Diversity. The Mandate focused on the relationships between conservation, the use of biological diversity and fishing activities and formed a valuable part of the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Establishment of the NRSMPA also contributes to the development of a Global Representative System of Marine Protected Areas.
The NRSMPA supports national commitments under the Inter-governmental Agreement on the Environment (1992). This Agreement made a commitment to the establishment of representative marine protected areas. The national commitments under the Agreement are implemented through national actions and strategies such as:
The main goals of the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity are to protect biological diversity and to maintain ecological processes and systems. The Strategy states that central to the conservation of Australia's biological diversity is the principal that
the establishment of a comprehensive, representative and adequate system of ecologically viable protected areas integrated with the sympathetic management of all other areas, including agricultural and other resource production systems.
In the marine environment the NRSMPA is a centrepiece of a national approach to the conservation of marine ecosystems, habitats and species forming part of an integrated strategy for marine conservation and management.
In this section:
The Commonwealth Marine Protected Areas Program has supported these and other publications that contribute to the establishment of the NRSMPA.
See also: List of NRSMPA publications
The Guidelines for Establishing the NRSMPA were prepared to assist government agencies in developing the NRSMPA and to help stakeholders understand this process. Government ministers of the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council endorsed the Guidelines on 11 December 1998. The Guidelines deal with key aspects of the establishment of marine protected areas including the functions of the NRSMPA and criteria for identifying and selecting marine protected areas. The Guidelines continue to be used by each jurisdiction to reinforce the national commitment to establishing the NRSMPA.
The Strategic Plan of Action for the NRSMPA integrated the policy and planning framework and outlined a set of actions to achieve the goals of the NRSMPA. Government ministers of the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council endorsed the Plan in July 1999. The Plan provided a guide to understanding the NRSMPA by defining it in the context of an array of existing mechanisms and agreements that promote the conservation of Australia's marine biodiversity. The Plan concentrated on the establishment of NRSMPA, including performance assessment for the System, and a set of actions that reflect both national intention and government priorities. The Plan is a long-term national blueprint.
In this section:
The following extracts of the 1999 Guidelines for Establishing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas describe the characteristics of managed areas that may be included in the NRSMPA, and set out principles and criteria for extending the NRSMPA.
Key characteristics define the marine protected areas that form the NRSMPA, as compared to the other marine managed areas. They are that the marine protected area
Area management operates at a range of scales across the marine environment for a variety of primary purposes. Many managed marine areas that also benefit biodiversity conservation are not included in the NRSMPA. Examples of the types of marine managed areas that are not included in the NRSMPA are some indigenous protected areas, some areas established to protect fish habitats, and some areas under cooperative management arrangements with industry.
Biosphere Reserves, established under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program, contribute to biodiversity conservation and core areas could be included in the NRSMPA as protected areas.
Regional framework: The Integrated Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia (IMCRA) provides the national and regional planning framework for developing the NRSMPA, with ecosystems used as the basis for determining representativeness.
Comprehensiveness: The NRSMPA will include the full range of ecosystems recognized at an appropriate scale within and across each bioregion.
Adequacy: The NRSMPA will have the required level of reservation to ensure the ecological viability and integrity of populations, species and communities.
Representativeness: Those marine areas that are selected for inclusion in MPAs should reasonably reflect the biotic diversity of the marine ecosystems from which they derive.
Highly protected areas: The NRSMPA will aim to include some highly protected areas (IUCN Categories I and II) in each bioregion.
Precautionary principle: The absence of scientific certainty should not be a reason for postponing measures to establish marine protected areas to protect representative ecosystems. If an activity is assessed as having a low risk of causing serious or irreversible adverse impacts, or if there is insufficient information with which to assess fully and with certainty the magnitude and nature of impacts, decision making should proceed in a conservative and cautious manner.
Consultation: The processes of identification and selection of marine protected areas will include effective and high quality public consultation with appropriate community and interest groups, to address current and future social, economic and cultural issues.
Indigenous involvement: The interests of Australia's indigenous people should be recognised and incorporated in decision making.
Decision making: Decision making processes should effectively integrate both long term and short term environmental, economic, social and equity considerations.
In this section:
The criteria listed below refer to the identification of candidate areas for the NRSMPA and selection of sites for marine protected areas. For the NRSMPA, biodiversity and environmental criteria are the primary criteria for the identification of candidate areas. Sound biodiversity and other baseline data are essential to ensure that decision making is underpinned by good science. Social, cultural and/or economic criteria are applied primarily in the selection of marine protected area sites from the candidate areas.
In practice, jurisdictions may apply some of the selection criteria at an earlier stage in the identification phase, e.g. socio-economic considerations. Environmental criteria and social, cultural and economic criteria should be considered as layers in the decision making process, with criteria from each list able to be used at any stage in the processes of identification and selection as appropriate.
Vulnerability assessment is part of both the identification and selection processes. In the identification phase, vulnerability can be related to natural processes. In the selection phase vulnerability to human actions and threatening processes should be used to prioritise the selection of sites for marine protected areas.
The selection and declaration processes are carried out by State, Territory and Commonwealth agencies for their jurisdictions. Some cross-jurisdiction consultation will be required where proposed marine protected areas cross jurisdiction boundaries.
Flexibility of application of the criteria will be required due to the variety of legislative and management frameworks within the States, Northern Territory and the Commonwealth, and the individual circumstances relating to specific sites. A potential marine protected area site may meet one or many of the listed criteria. Depending on the objectives for the site, one or more criteria may be considered to have greater 'weight' in the consideration process.
The criteria are generally derived from
Will the area
Does the area
Does the area
Does the area
Does the area capture important biogeographic qualities?
Does the site
Does the site
Does the site: