The strategy

In 1998 Australia signed the ANZECC agreement defined the primary goal as:

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 criteria used to assess a marine park are the “CAR principles”,

Comprehensiveness—the reserve system should be big enough to include the full range of ecosystems/habitats found in each bioregion.

Adequacy—the rules need to protect the ecological values of the habitat and the communities of animals and plants living there.

Representativeness—the marine park needs to protect a good sample of all the diversity that is found in that bioregion.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have criteria for setting up and maintaining MPA networks. They have described classes of MPAs from heavily protected Class 1 MPAs down to MPAs with few legislative protections.

How do we decide where to put them?

Numerous areas have been proposed for marine parks by different groups at different times. We could create a long list of potential sites that would be unlikely to all be accepted by the community and they have varying value as marine parks. A better approach is to have fewer, but higher quality parks based on a more scientific approach.

Some sites that repeatedly come up are Rocky Cape, Waterhouse Point and New Year Island (off King Island). There are also no marine parks on the northern section of the West Coast or on Flinder’s Island. There may be other areas that are important to the community that also get assessed.

What areas make good MPAs

Lots of things are taken into account when deciding on marine park locations and no area fits perfectly. A good process should look for areas that might have some or all of the following:

• rare or unique plants and animals

• are particularly important to some animals e.g. a breeding place for seals or seabirds.

• Special landforms like unusual estuaries, sea caves, scenic spots or geology

• A good cross section of animals and plants are found in that area

• Can be protected from their major threats by declaring a marine park

• Might be attractive for recreation or tourism

• Will provide for at least two well protected marine parks in each bioregion

• Are an area big enough to protect the special life and ecosystems found there

• Try to minimise clashes with existing users.

• Are in good condition, or would quickly return to good to condition if protected

• Ease of policing (e.g. adjoin an existing national park on land)

• The type of protection would give it at least some protection from its principal threats

• include a range of habitats (e.g. sheltered to exposed, shallow to deep, reef to soft bottom/seagrass);

• Are likely to be supported by the public.

What you end up with is a kind of scorecard as no area has a perfect score in all these areas, some areas are of high or low value as protected areas.

How does this affect my fishing?

If fishing is a significant threat to a very special place we might have to talk about it. Marine parks that aren’t protected from their main threats aren’t very useful.