Australia, the leading country of Marine Protected Areas

The map below shows the estate of marine protected areas that are either Commonwealth reserves or conservation zones that the Australian government manages. These reserves and zones fall under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act which was formed in 1999 by the Australian government.

Figure 1: Map of Commonwealth reserves and conservation zones in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011)

If having the most marine protected areas was a contest, Australia would win by a long shot.  Australia currently has over 200 Marine Protected Areas. They have 100% more marine protected areas than Newfoundland and Labrador, which only has 2 MPA’s established.  As mentioned in a previous blog, Newfoundland’s Marine Protected Areas are located in Gilbert’s Bay and in Eastport.

Not only Newfoundland, but Canada and the United States all look poorly when it comes to MPA’s when compared to Australia. However, it is not all bad news. Canada can learn a lot by the MPA’s established in Australia and how they are managed.

Situated in Australia is the largest marine protected area in the world, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. This are can be seen in the figure below in the northeast of Australia.

  Figure 2: Map of Marine Protected Areas located around Australia. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011)

This area runs over 2300 kilometers along the coast and is approximately 400 kilometers wide. In 2004, the Australian government implemented a new management plan for the area. It has set up 70 distinct bioregions.  40 of these bioregions are non-reef regions and the other 30 are reef bioregions. Within each of all these regions, at least 20% of the area has banned commercial fishing completely. Separate zones are designated for commercial fishing, traditional fishing and research. This ideal example of management has been slowly adapted to other parts of the world.

Another thing that Australia is doing right is they are connecting their networks of marine protected areas together.Linked MPA’s are more resilient to human pressures (fishing, tourism, recreation, etc…) and are more likely to recover from disturbances than isolated marine protected areas.  In Newfoundland, our 2 MPA’s are very isolated from each other. When compared to Canada, the 8 marine protected areas are split between the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans and are once again isolated by great distances.

When compared to Newfoundland and Labrador the first thing that is evident is that Newfoundland or even Canada does not have enough marine protected areas established. Of the 8 marine protected areas in Canada, the size of these areas combined do not even equal the size of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. More marine protected areas need to be formed and it may be worthwhile to look at the way MPA’s are managed in Australia and how Canada can adapt these management strategies. Once more MPA’s are set up in Canada, the government should consider the importance and benefits of keeping these MPA’s as linked networks instead of as isolated individuals.