A leading marine scientist, Emeritus Professor Robert Kearney of the University of Canberra has found that a South Australian Government proposal for marine parks has failed to properly identify threats to marine biodiversity, the ways in which the proposed system of MPAs will ‘protect’ against or ameliorate such impacts and how success can be measured.
The report to Wildcatch SA, the State’s peak fishing industry body, highlights crucial principles which have not been included in the ‘Design Principles’ for the South Australian Representative System of Marine Protected Areas. Hence, the Report concludes it cannot be established that the proposed SARSMPA is an appropriate, adequate or cost-effective strategy to fulfil obligations to conserve, protect and sustainably use marine biodiversity.
“We are not against marine parks or the appropriate conservation of the State’s marine environment,” General Manager of Wildcatch SA, Mr Neil MacDonald said. “However, we believe it is vital that real threats are identified and special areas developed in direct response to those threats.”
“It is significant that the Government’s proposal for declaring marine parks specifically excludes the area (Gulf St Vincent Bio-region) that was identified by its own comprehensive scientific study as being of the highest priority for the establishment of marine protected areas but specifically includes the area (Coorong Bioregion) that was identified as of low priority,” the Report says. “This is further confirmation that the proposed marine parks do not address, and apparently are not intended to address, real marine conservation needs in South Australia but are simply empty political rhetoric.”
The State Government is proposing that approximately 46 per cent of the State’s coastal waters – and about 70 per cent of coastal waters in the South East of the State – will be proclaimed as marine parks, with the potential for subsequent governments to exclude recreational and commercial fishers from any, or all waters contained within the marine parks outer boundary without going back to the community or Parliament.
“The Government’s documentation on marine parks and objective 1(a) of the recent Marine Parks Act clearly attempts to create the impression that marine parks automatically provide protection for the marine environment when in fact they will not,”
“The need in South Australia, as in other places, is to properly identify the threats to the marine environment and its biodiversity and then to address those threats through an appropriate management response. The management response, to be targeted and effective should be able to utilise all of the available management tools (including existing legislation and regulations) and therefore may or may not include the need for protected or ‘no-take’ areas.”
“In fact, we’re very much in the same boat as the Government when it comes to looking after the ocean and preserving the habitats of our unique species because the ongoing livelihood of our fishery, fishing families and their kids depend on it,” Mr MacDonald said.
“We have worked with successive governments to shape South Australia’s approach to marine parks since 1995 and believed, until Minister Weatherill’s ill-advised outer boundaries proposal was revealed, that the reasoned and reasonable position which was embodied within the Marine Parks Bill of 2007 would set the scene for a sensible and effective network of marine parks.”
