Establishing new Marine Protected Areas through Marine Bioregional Planning
The Australian Government is committed to protecting Australia's marine biodiversity. A key part of its conservation strategy, is developing a representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs) in Commonwealth waters by 2012. This will contribute to the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA), which is described in more detail in the Guidelines for Establishing the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas.
The primary goal of the NRSMPA is to establish and manage a comprehensive, adequate and representative system of MPAs that will contribute to the long-term ecological viability of marine and estuarine systems, maintain ecological processes and systems and protect Australia's biological diversity at all levels.
The establishment of the MPA network is being progressed as part of the marine bioregional planning process, being conducted by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
The policy to develop the NRSMPA was formally endorsed by the Australian Government, the States and the Northern Territory in 1998. More recently, the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has refined its approach to MPA development, through the policy document Goals and Principles for the establishment of the National Representative System of MPAs in Commonwealth waters. This policy document will help to provide clarity regarding the development of MPAs in Commonwealth waters. The development of this policy document was informed by the Scientific Peer Review Panel established by the Australian Government to access the recently com South-east MPA network. The Peer Review Panel produced a report which includes information on the guiding principles for the creation of further MPAs. Their report is called Guidance on Achieving Comprehensiveness, Adequacy and Representativeness in the Commonwealth waters component of the NRSMPA. This report has been made available to assist in better understanding the guiding principles for the creation of MPAs. The report does not necessarily reflect the views of the Commonwealth or indicate its commitment to a particular course of action.
The Goals and Principles will be applied in Commonwealth waters in each of the four marine planning regions over the next four years.
The Marine Bioregional Profile, which is the first document to be released to the public in each region, will outline how the Goals and Principles will be applied at the regional level. This process is well underway with a Bioregional Profile of the South-west Marine Region now complete. This is the first step in identifying areas which should be protected within the network of MPAs in the South-west Region.
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