Australia's marine parks have been accused of being a bit like a security guard who only patrols the empty warehouse while the jewelry store next door is being robbed. A coalition of over 270 leading marine scientists from 84 research institutes has written to Environment Minister Murray Watt, urging stronger protections for marine ecosystems as a once-in-a-decade review of marine parks gets underway.
The oceans surrounding Australia are nothing short of spectacular, boasting tropical reefs, icy Antarctic shores, six UNESCO World Heritage areas, and at least 33,000 marine species. But these waters face compounding pressures from climate-driven ocean warming, fishing, extractive industries, and expanding use. As Professor Jessica Meeuwig, director of the Marine Futures Lab at the University of Western Australia and an author of the statement, points out, many species found in Australian waters exist nowhere else on the planet. 'If we don't protect them here, it's not like we can expect somebody else to do the job, they're lost forever.'
Currently, about a quarter of Australian waters are highly protected, but these 'no take zones' are concentrated in remote offshore and territorial waters, leaving the waters around mainland Australia as unprotected as a nudist beach in Antarctica. The scientists are calling for 'at least 30%' of every marine bioregion to be highly protected, with bans on industrial trawling, longlining, and mining across all marine parks. They also insist that no current protections should be wound back.
'In some of our regions, there's only 1 to 7% of the oceans that are highly protected, and the rest is open slather,' Meeuwig said, highlighting marine regions off New South Wales, south-east Queensland, Western Australia, western South Australia, and the Northern Territory.
Professor David Booth, a marine ecologist at the University of Technology Sydney, notes that the temperate east region - one of five up for review - is 'incredibly biodiverse.' Around Sydney, there are six to seven hundred species of fish, which is 'way more than we should have based on our latitude,' featuring a mix of tropical and temperate species. The region, stretching from the Great Barrier Reef's southern border to Bermagui on the NSW south coast, is also a 'hot spot' for climate-driven changes, with temperate fish species - including many that people like to eat - heading south, and added pressure from urbanisation, industry, and fishing. 'It's an area of rapid change, with very little protection at the moment,' he said.
Watt claims the government is 'well on the way to meeting the Albanese government's commitment to highly protect 30% of Australia's ocean by 2030,' and that the proposed expansion of marine parks around Lord Howe and Norfolk islands would achieve the target ahead of time. The review, he says, would provide 'further opportunities to better protect key ocean habitats' while 'allowing for sustainable use and conservation.'
Associate Professor Carissa Klein, director of the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the University of Queensland, cuts to the chase: the current locations of highly protected areas are 'biased towards places that no one goes.' 'We're not actually protecting the diversity of life that we have in the ocean,' she said. 'Every bioregion is unique and distinct, and has different animals and plants. We want them to get to 30% of every one. We want a representative network of protected areas all around Australia.'
Such protections would benefit fishers too, as well as boosting tourism and the environment, Meeuwig said. For example, 80% of the coral trout caught in areas open to fishing on the Great Barrier Reef were born in highly protected areas.
The review is a 'tremendous opportunity,' she said. 'When Australia leads, it keeps the bar high. When we set the bar low, it gives permission to everybody else to do a bad job. If Australia flounders at this opportunity, it will have ramifications across other places.'