Coasts and oceans
Theme commentary
Trevor J Ward, Greenward Consulting, Perth, Western Australia
Alan Butler, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Brisbane, Queensland
prepared for the 2006 Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2006
Management systems
Integrated Oceans Management
Australia’s Oceans Policy is the single most important policy instrument in Australian history. It is designed to improve the processes and outcomes of marine management in estuaries, coastal, and offshore waters. The policy was developed through substantial national consultation between government and industries, and with Indigenous, community and conservation groups in the mid to late 1990s. The primary expression of the policy is the process of regional marine planning, which is being conducted sequentially in each of the major marine regions of Australia by the National Oceans Office. To provide the spatial framework for the regional marine planning process, a National Marine Bioregionalisation has been produced to define, amongst others, the boundaries of 41 marine provinces within the EEZ. The first regional marine plan has been completed for the south-east region, and subsequent plans are in the process of development for the northern and south-west regions (NOO, 2003).
The primary objective of the regional marine planning process, and each regional plan, is to identify and agree on a set of management arrangements for each use and user of ocean resources so that, collectively, their impacts on the environment, biodiversity and natural resources are minimised and constrained to acceptable levels. There is a substantial Australian Government commitment to implement regional marine planning, but the process has not achieved wide recognition and acceptance in the states and territories, although all states recognise the importance of bioregional planning and integration of management arrangements. In November 2005, it was announced by the Commonwealth Minister for Environment and Heritage that the preparation of regional marine planning under Australia’s Oceans Policy would thenceforth be considered to fall within section 176 of the EPBC Act, which deals with the development of bioregional plans. This declaration recognises the primary role of regional marine planning as a Commonwealth planning instrument, and makes it clear that complementary arrangements will need to be negotiated with each state and territory in regard to the integration and coordination of ecosystem-based management arrangements for inshore waters.
The issue of management integration within and between state, territory and Commonwealth waters is crucial. All the states and the Northern Territory have vast coastal marine regions with exceptional biodiversity values. For example, Western Australia’s marine jurisdiction comprises 18 bioregions covering about 126 000 square kilometres of mainly shallow coastal waters along 13 000 kilometres of coastline, spanning a range of more than 20° of latitude (14° to 35°) and, in places, extending out to 100 kilometres from the coast. This Western Australian area hosts marine biodiversity components of extreme global biodiversity value, including about 20 000 square kilometres of the worlds most diverse seagrass beds, about 2500 square kilometres of mangrove forests, one of the worlds largest fringing coral reef ecosystems (Ningaloo Reef is 290 kilometres long) and one of the world’s most southerly high diversity coral reef systems (Abrolhos Islands, 28°S, comprising 122 islands).
The Natural Resources Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC) oversees the delivery of the Natural Resources Management programmes: the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (NAP) and the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) (Australian Government, 2006). These programmes are cooperatively implemented by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments to improve catchment management and land use, and the NRMMC has endorsed a framework for a national cooperative approach to integrated coastal zone management (DEH 2003). Despite the obvious implications for water quality and resources of estuaries and coastal waters across all of Australia, there are only minor marine or coastal aspects in either programme, and there appears to be only limited coordination with the regional marine planning process under Australia’s Oceans Policy.
Protected areas (more information on this topic)
It is widely argued that networks of formally protected areas are the only way that the structure and function of marine ecosystems and biodiversity can be reliably managed to ensure their long term and low risk protection (for example, Lubchenco et al. 2003). In 1998 the Commonwealth and state governments committed to developing a National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA). The primary goal of the NRSMPA is to establish and manage a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) 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.
By 2002, Australia had declared 188 marine and estuarine protected areas with the primary objective of protection of biodiversity, encompassing a total area of 646 400 square kilometres (DEH, 2002). This includes the world’s largest marine reserve, 65 000 square kilometres, in the waters surrounding Heard Island and McDonald Islands. In 2004, protection of the Great Barrier Reef was substantially increased through a major rezoning in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which resulted in an increase in the most highly protected ‘green zones’ from about 17 000 square kilometres to about 114 530 square kilometres (about 33 per cent of the total area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park). In Western Australia, the Ningaloo Marine Park was extended to 2354 square kilometres, and 34 per cent of this is dedicated to high-level protection (marine reserve). These protected areas contain some of the world’s most important areas of marine biodiversity, and result from an accelerating programme of protected area establishment in all state, territory and Commonwealth jurisdictions.
The formal NRSMPA programme does not recognise marine areas that are protected for other purposes, such as fisheries closures. While only areas dedicated under conservation legislation are likely to be fully effective as marine reserves, the areas set aside for, say, fishery protection purposes also make a contribution to the protection of marine biodiversity. The extent of this contribution, and the effectiveness of the management controls in such areas, have not been assessed, although it is clear that areas such as fishery closures do make a significant additional contribution beyond the NRSMPA to the conservation of marine biodiversity, even though they may be dedicated for protection of production values rather than conservation values.
While many of Australia’s marine protected areas have zones that are dedicated for high levels of protection, some have large areas where a range of activities are permitted, including fishing, mining, oil and gas exploration. By 2002 less than 160 000 square kilometres was classified for highest level of protection, limiting the effectiveness for conservation. For example, of Western Australia’s 18 bioregions, 12 have no marine protected areas. While 12 per cent of the Western Australian marine jurisdiction is within some form of marine protected area, only about 2.5 per cent is contained within highly protected zones, and the existing system of Western Australian marine protected areas is neither fully comprehensive nor representative (Figure 6). Nonetheless, for the existing marine protected areas, Western Australia has a strong programme of management, and well-designed management plans with elements of research and monitoring are either now in place or are under development. Other states have varying policies, for example:
Figure 6: Marine Protected Areas in Western Australian waters
Source: Bioregions from IMCRA 3.3, Data provided courtesy of the Marine Conservation Branch of Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management.
The explicit intention of the NRSMPA is to protect samples of all the types and levels of Australia’s marine biodiversity within a system of protected areas that span the full marine jurisdiction, including the offshore waters and islands, coasts and shores, estuaries, lagoons and bays, reef systems, benthic systems, and pelagic systems. But as yet no nationally consistent system of planning and management, or assessment and reporting, has been developed that will deliver outcomes capable of meeting the expressed intention of the NRSMPA in either CAR or IUCN terms. Each state and territory and the Commonwealth have adopted a different approach to the planning, consultation, identification and selection of marine protected areas, and each of these is different to that of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the recognised international benchmark in such matters. A systematic monitoring of the performance of the NRSMPA against a nationally-agreed set of performance criteria is urgently needed to enable an evaluation of the effectiveness of the NRSMPA as a national response to the critical issues of the conservation of marine biodiversity in on-reserve situations. To enable an unbiased assessment of conservation achievements, this will also need to be supported by an analysis of the biodiversity conservation contribution made by the various forms of fishery closures in Australian waters.
Overall, Australia’s NRSMPA is an important policy platform for securing conservation of biodiversity and protection of ecosystem functions within Australian waters, but has not yet been proven to provide a major contribution to biodiversity conservation. Certainly some important marine protected areas have been declared, and some very important elements of biodiversity have been protected (such as the Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo and the Heard and McDonald islands, but these have been achieved in their own right, not because of a systematic application of the NRSMPA.
Protected species (more information on this topic)
The Commonwealth’s EPBC Act promotes the conservation of biodiversity by providing strong protection for threatened species and ecological communities. These are species and communities that may be threatened for a variety of reasons, such as loss of critical habitat, or the adverse effects of fishing. The Act also provides a list of species that must be considered in the conduct of any activity by any Commonwealth agency, or within fisheries that are submitted for approval under the Act, to ensure that impacts on such species are at an acceptable level.
The Act provides for identification of key threatening processes, protection of critical habitat, preparation of management plans, issuing of conservation orders and regulation of wildlife import and export. Species and ecological communities that meet specific criteria may be declared as threatened under the Act, and processes may be formally declared as key threatening processes. Species may be found to be Extinct, Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable or Conservation Dependent.
Up to mid-2005, the populations of 18 marine species have been declared as threatened under the Act— five birds, five sharks, two seals, the Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea), four species of handfish, and the Port Davey Skate (or Maugean Skate (Raja sp.L)). Some 12 recovery plans were in place at mid-2005. No marine communities have been declared as threatened. Two marine Key Threatening Processes have been declared—‘Incidental catch (bycatch) of Sea Turtle during coastal otter-trawling operations within Australian waters north of 28 degrees South’, and ‘Injury and fatality to vertebrate marine life caused by ingestion of, or entanglement in, harmful marine debris ’.
The number of populations of threatened marine species listed under the Act has increased in recent years, but this probably is more a reflection of improving knowledge than declining species conditions. The number is likely to continue to increase as better information accrues. In particular, as information about invertebrates and marine plants increases, more of these groups are likely to become formally recognised as threatened.