Marine Protected Areas
Commonwealth marine protected areas
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Australia's South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network is the first temperate deep sea network of marine reserves in the world. This large network covering 226,458 square kilometres, covers representative examples of the diverse seafloor features and associated habitats found in the South-east Marine Region. The South-east Marine Region stretches from the far south coast of New South Wales, around Tasmania and Victoria and west to Kangaroo Island off South Australia.
The reserves include striking features such as underwater canyons and mountains, and the diverse marine life associated with them, some of which is new to science and found nowhere else in the world.
The network will include 13 new Commonwealth Marine Reserves and the Macquarie Island Commonwealth Marine Reserve. The new reserves are:
The South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network has been designed to contribute to the National Representative system of marine protected areas (NRSMPA). Australia's governments are working together to set up a national system of protected areas throughout our entire marine zone.
The aim of NRSMPA is to protect areas which represent all of our major ecological regions and the communities of plants and animals they contain. This will help to conserve important habitats and representative samples of our marine life for present and future generations. All State and Commonwealth Marine Protected Area's contribute to the National System. The Australian Government made an international commitment to establish a representative network of marine reserves by 2012. This commitment was made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. Read more about NRSMPA
The South-east network development process was designed to build a Commonwealth Marine Reserve network using the various seafloor features (e.g. canyons and seamounts) that were representative of the South-east marine region. The objective was to ensure that the network contained representative examples of the major seafloor features of the region. This approach was adopted because we have a relatively poor knowledge of the plants and animals of the deepwater parts of the South-east, but we do know that the biology and ecology of the deep ocean varies with geomorphology (seafloor features). In the absence of full scientific certainty about the animals and plants of these regions, these geomorphic features were the best 'surrogates' available.
The process of developing the South-east network of Commonwealth Marine Reserves began in earnest about four years ago with a comprehensive scientific inventory to identify all the relevant mapping and research. A scientific panel developed broad scale mapping of the region and then identified Broad Areas of Interest from within which the Reserves were to be identified. Next the Australian Government and scientists developed a set of specifications (guidelines) for determining what should be included in the Reserves. Stakeholders had input on the guidelines. These specifications included guidance on the location, size, number of and what features like canyons or seamounts should be included and how boundaries should be designed to make compliance and management effective.
The Australian Government identified the Reserves in the South-east network using these specifications and the best available scientific knowledge, while at the same time seeking to minimise the impacts on industry. The Government released a proposed system of Reserves in December 2005 based on these specifications and asked all the interested stakeholder groups to give feedback and alternative suggestions that would meet the specifications. The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts met with key stakeholder groups to discuss the proposals and received a number of submissions from industry, conservation groups, scientists and members of the community.
The final proposal is the outcome of those consultations. The Government has made around 20 changes to boundaries and zoning based on stakeholder inputs. The result is a network that is both larger and more representative of the region than was the original proposal and has far less impact on industry.
