Australia

Marine Protected Areas in Australia

The Commonwealth of Australia lies in the Southern Hemisphere between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In addition to the mainland, Australia’s territories include the island of Tasmania and a number of smaller nearby islands in the Indian, Pacific, and southern Oceans. Australia is totally surrounded by water, and has 59,736 km of coastline. As the world’s sixth largest country, Australia has jurisdiction over a large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Including its external territories, Australia’s EEZ is 8.2 million sq km; the third largest in the world.

Australia has an ongoing commitment under national and international laws to conserve biological diversity through the establishment of protected areas. In 1993 the Australian government ratified the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which included provisions for the establishment of a system of protected areas, along with guidelines for their selection, establishment, and management. In 1996, Australia developed the National Strategy for Conservation of Australia’s Biodiversity, part of which made the establishment of “a comprehensive, representative, and adequate system of ecologically viable protected areas” a national priority (1). The passage of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999, Australia’s key piece of environmental legislation (2), provided a legal framework for the Commonwealth government to work with States and Territories to, among other things, create a national network of marine protected areas.

Australia has a well-developed network of State, Territory and Commonwealth marine protected areas known as the National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA). All MPAs in the system must be established with the primary purpose of biodiversity conservation, fall into at least one of the six IUCN Protected Area Management Categories, have secure status that can only be revoked by an act of parliament, and contribute to the representativeness, comprehensiveness, or adequacy of the MPA system (3). In order to contribute to the “representativeness” of the system, MPAs must reflect the unique biological diversity of Australia’s marine ecosystems. Marine protected areas can be designated by Commonwealth, State, or Northern Territory government agencies, and may be co-managed by more than one agency. According to the Australian Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, and Communities, there are over 200 MPAs in Australian waters. The total area of the NRSMPA covers 88 million hectares—10% of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. These numbers differ from the World Database on Protected Areas, which lists 606 marine protected areas in Australian waters, with a total coverage of 27.9% of Australia’s EEZ.

Cited Sources:

[1] Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, and Communities—National Strategy for Conservation of Australia’s Biological Diversity

[2] Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, and Communities—Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act

[3] Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, and Communities—National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas

Other Sources:

•	Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, and Communities—Marine Protected Areas

•	Geoscience Australia—Oceans and Seas