Jon Day

Zoning—lessons from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is bigger than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined. Over the last 25 years a range of management ‘tools’, including zoning plans, permits, education, and more recently management plans, have been applied to regulate access and to control and mitigate impacts associated with human use of the GBRMP. A multiple-use zoning approach provides high levels of protection for specific areas whilst allowing reasonable uses, including certain fishing activities, to continue in other zones. Zoning has long been regarded as a cornerstone of Marine Park management, separating conflicting uses through application of the various zones and determining the appropriateness of various activities. Zoning in the GBRMP has evolved and changed considerably since the first zoning plan in 1981, along with other management approaches. This paper outlines what aspects of zoning have worked well, what has necessarily changed, and the zoning lessons learned from over two decades of ‘adaptive management’. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A critique of claims for negative impacts of Marine Protected Areas on fisheries

[Extract] To the Editor: Establishing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), often including zones that are closed to fishing, is an effective approach to maintaining biodiversity and rebuilding ecosystem function (e.g. McCook et al. 2010). However, MPAs are frequently opposed by fishers and by some fisheries managers, because of the potential for displacing fishing activity and reducing catches (Caveen et al. 2015). How much catch is lost due to spatial closures in both the short and long term is a critical question, even where the objective of establishing MPAs is to conserve biodiversity rather than to regulate fisheries.

Human Dimensions of Large-scale Marine Protected Areas: Advancing Research and Practice

This special issue of Coastal Management focuses on the human dimensions of large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs), those MPAs that are typically larger than 250,000 km2.11. Toonen et al. (2013 Toonen, R. J., T. A. Wilhelm, S. M. Maxwell, D. Wagner, B. W. Bowen, C. R. C. Sheppard, S. M. Taei, T. Teroroko, R. Moffitt, C. F. Gaymer, et al. 2013. One size does not fit all: The emerging frontier in large-scale marine conservation. Marine Pollution Bulletin 77:7–10.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]) and the Big Ocean network of LSMPA managers define LSMPAs as those larger than 250,000 km2. Other authors have defined LSMPAs as larger than 30,000 km2 (de Santo 2013 de Santo, E. M. 2013. Missing marine protected area (MPA) targets: How the push for quantity over quality undermines sustainability and social justice. Journal of Environmental Management 124:137–46.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]) or 100,000 km2 (Spalding et al. 2013 Spalding, M. D., I. Meliane, A. Milam, C. Fitzgerald, and L. Z. Hale. 2013. Protecting marine spaces: Global targets and changing approaches. Ocean Yearbook 27:213–48.[Crossref], [Google Scholar]; Gruby et al. 2016 Gruby, R. L., N. J. Gray, L. M. Campbell, and L. Acton. 2016. Toward a social science research agenda for large marine protected areas. Conservation Letters 9 (3):153–63.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]). View all notes We define ‘human dimensions’ as the cultural, social, economic, political, and institutional factors that affect and are affected by large-scale marine conservation efforts. While human dimensions of marine conservation and coastal management have long been a focus of research, they have not yet received sustained and systematic consideration in relation to LSMPAs specifically. Although there is an emerging body of scholarship focused on the human dimensions of LSMPAs (e.g. de Santo 2013 de Santo, E. M. 2013. Missing marine protected area (MPA) targets: How the push for quantity over quality undermines sustainability and social justice. Journal of Environmental Management 124:137–46.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Harris 2014 Harris, P. 2014. A Political Trilemma? International Secruity, Environmental Protection and Human Rights in the British Indian Ocean Territory. International Politics 51 (1):87–100.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Wilhelm et al. 2014 Wilhelm, T. A., C. R. C. Sheppard, A. L. S. Sheppard, C. F. Gaymer, J. Parks, D. Wagner, and N. Lewis. 2014. Large marine protected areas – advantages and challenges of going big: Considerations when going big in MPAs. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 24:24–30.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Richmond and Kotowicz 2015 Richmond, L., and D. Kotowicz. 2015. Equity and access in marine protected areas: The history and future of ‘traditional indigenous fishing’ in the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. Applied Geography 59:117–24.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Gruby et al. 2016 Gruby, R. L., N. J. Gray, L. M. Campbell, and L. Acton. 2016. Toward a social science research agenda for large marine protected areas. Conservation Letters 9 (3):153–63.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Ban et al. 2017 Ban N. C., T. E. Davies, S. E. Aguilera, C. Brooks, M. Cox, G. Epstein, L. S. Evans, S. M. Maxwell, and M. Nenadovic. 2017. Social and ecological effectiveness of large marine protected areas. Global Environmental Change 43:82–91.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Alger and Dauvergne 2017 Alger, J., and P. Dauvergne. 2017. The global norm of large marine protected areas: Explaining variable adoption and implementation. Environmental Policy and Governance 27 (4):298–310. doi:10.1002/eet.1768.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]; Christie et al. 2017 Christie P., N. J. Bennett, N. J. Gray, T. A. Wilhelm, N. Lewis, J. Parks, N. C. Ban, R. L. Gruby, L. Gordon, J. Day, et al. 2017. Why people matter in ocean governance: Incorporating human dimensions into large scale marine protected areas. Marine Policy 84:273–284.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]), this is the first collection of papers devoted to their analysis. The purpose of this special issue is to showcase the diversity of human dimensions of LSMPAs, illustrating the range of contexts in which LSMPAs function, the variety of social science tools that can be used to analyze LSMPAs, the ways that human dimensions considerations can be integrated into LSMPA management, and the diverse human dimensions outcomes that are associated with LSMPAs. We suggest this special issue is timely and valuable for several reasons.

Effective Public Participation is Fundamental for Marine Conservation—Lessons from a Large-Scale MPA

ABSTRACT The Representative Areas Program (RAP) was, at the time, the most comprehensive process of community involvement and participatory planning for any environmental issue in Australia. The RAP was a key component of the widely acclaimed rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and although completed in 2003, many lessons learned are still relevant today. This paper provides an analysis of the comprehensive public participation program that significantly influenced the final planning outcome. It provides insights into a fundamental component of effective marine planning, assessing what worked well and what did not in terms of public engagement. Some aspects of the public participation program were innovative, and some were more effective than others. The outcome was one-third of the Marine Park was declared as highly protected no-take zones in 2004, with the remainder of the park also zoned to provide lower levels of protection. The methods used to engage the public and the 25 lessons discussed in this paper should be of interest for practitioners, policy makers and academics elsewhere aiming for “good practice” approaches to achieve environmental conservation.

Biodiversity of the Great Barrier Reef—how adequately is it protected?

Background The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the world’s most iconic coral reef ecosystem, recognised internationally as a World Heritage Area of outstanding significance. Safeguarding the biodiversity of this universally important reef is a core legislative objective; however, ongoing cumulative impacts including widespread coral bleaching and other detrimental impacts have heightened conservation concerns for the future of the GBR. Methods Here we review the literature to report on processes threatening species on the GBR, the status of marine biodiversity, and evaluate the extent of species-level monitoring and reporting. We assess how many species are listed as threatened at a global scale and explore whether these same species are protected under national threatened species legislation. We conclude this review by providing future directions for protecting potentially endangered elements of biodiversity within the GBR. Results Most of the threats identified to be harming the diversity of marine life on the GBR over the last two–three decades remain to be effectively addressed and many are worsening. The inherent resilience of this globally significant coral reef ecosystem has been seriously compromised and various elements of the biological diversity for which it is renowned may be at risk of silent extinction. We show at least 136 of the 12,000+ animal species known to occur on the GBR (approximately 20% of the 700 species assessed by the IUCN) occur in elevated categories of threat (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable) at a global scale. Despite the wider background level of threat for these 136 species, only 23 of them are listed as threatened under regional or national legislation. Discussion To adequately protect the biodiversity values of the GBR, it may be necessary to conduct further targeted species-level monitoring and reporting to complement ecosystem management approaches. Conducting a vigorous value of information analysis would provide the opportunity to evaluate what new and targeted information is necessary to support dynamic management and to safeguard both species and the ecosystem as a whole. Such an analysis would help decision-makers determine if further comprehensive biodiversity surveys are needed, especially for those species recognised to be facing elevated background levels of threat. If further monitoring is undertaken, it will be important to ensure it aligns with and informs the GBRMPA Outlook five-year reporting schedule. The potential also exists to incorporate new environmental DNA technologies into routine monitoring to deliver high-resolution species data and identify indicator species that are cursors of specific disturbances. Unless more targeted action is taken to safeguard biodiversity, we may fail to pass onto future generations many of the values that comprise what is universally regarded as the world’s most iconic coral reef ecosystem.