Marine Protected Areas

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• Australian IUCN Reserve Management Principles for Commonwealth MPAs (PDF - 296 KB)

About the brochure

In 1994 The World Conservation Union (IUCN ) published the Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories.

The IUCN identified seven international categories which form the basis for the Australian IUCN Reserve Management Principles.

All seven categories are important. The number assigned to a category does not reflect its importance:
all categories are needed for conservation and sustainable development. The categories do represent varying degrees of human intervention.

Protected areas are established to meet objectives consistent with national and local goals and needs, such as those established by Australia's Oceans Policy. Once these objectives are identified for a particular marine protected area (MPA), an IUCN category is assigned. The assigned category is that one which most closely aligns with the objectives of the MPA.

Activities considered appropriate in each reserve must be consistent with the Australian IUCN Reserve Management Principles and are decided in a case by case assessment, based on all the information available for a specific reserve and in a way that provides stakeholders with opportunities to be involved in these decisions in an open and transparent way.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation ACT 1999 provides that:

• the proclamation of a Commonwealth reserve must assign the reserve to an IUCN category and may also assign an IUCN category to any zones
• the Minister must be satisfied that the reserve or zone has the characteristics listed in the Act
• the reserve or zone should be managed in accordance with the Australian IUCN Reserve Management Principles
• the management plan for each Commonwealth reserve must also assign the reserve to an IUCN category.

This booklet provides the IUCN definition of each protected area management category and the Australian IUCN Reserve Management Principles for each category as set out in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Regulations.