Establishing Representative No‐Take Areas in the Great Barrier Reef: Large‐Scale Implementation of Theory on Marine Protected Areas

Abstract

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, an area almost the size of Japan, has a new network of no-take areas that significantly improves the protection of biodiversity. The new marine park zoning implements, in a quantitative manner, many of the theoretical design principles discussed in the literature. For example, the new network of no-take areas has at least 20% protection per "bioregion," minimum levels of protection for all known habitats and special or unique features, and minimum sizes for no-take areas of at least 10 or 20 km across at the smallest diameter. Overall, more than 33% of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is now in no-take areas (previously 4.5%). The steps taken leading to this outcome were to clarify to the interested public why the existing level of protection was inadequate; detail the conservation objectives of establishing new notake areas; work with relevant and independent experts to define, and contribute to, the best scientific process to deliver on the objectives; describe the biodiversity (e.g., map bioregions); define operational principles needed to achieve the objectives; invite community input on all of the above; gather and layer the data gathered in round-table discussions; report the degree of achievement of principles for various options of no-take areas; and determine how to address negative impacts. Some of the key success factors in this case have global relevance and include focusing initial communication on the problem to be addressed; applying * email leannef@gbrmpa.gov.au the precautionary principle; using independent experts; facilitating input to decision making; conducting extensive and participatory consultation; having an existing marine park that encompassed much of the ecosystem; having legislative power under federal law; developing high-level support; ensuring agency priority and ownership; and being able to address the issue of displaced fishers.Key Words: biophysical operational principles, cultural operational principles, economic operational principles, reserve-design software, social operational principles Establecimiento deÁreas sin Captura Representativas en la Gran Barrera Arrecifal: Implementación a Gran Escala de la Teoría sobreÁreas Marinas Protegidas Resumen: El Parque Marino Gran Barrera Arrecifal, con una superficie casi del tamaño de Japón, tiene una red deáreas sin captura que incrementa la protección de la biodiversidad significativamente. La nueva zonificación en el parque marino implementa, de manera cuantitativa, muchos de los principios teóricos de diseño discutidos en la literatura. Por ejemplo, la nueva red deáreas sin captura tiene niveles mínimos de protección de por lo menos 20% de protección por "bioregión" en todos los hábitats y rasgos especiales oúnicos conocidos, y tamaños mínimos para lasáreas sin captura de por lo menos 10 o 20 km en el diámetro menor. En general, más de 33% del Parque Marino Gran Barrera Arrecifal está enáreas sin captura (4.5% anteriormente). Los pasos hacia este resultado fueron clarificar al público interesa...

Beyond connectivity: how empirical methods can quantify population persistence to improve marine protected‐area design

“…There have been efforts towards handling this shortage by developing decision theory in the absence of perfect empirical information (Halpern et al 2006, Bottrill et al 2008, White et al 2010b, and developing approaches for designing MPAs based on representative areas that capture community-and ecosystem-level characteristics (Leslie et al 2003, Fernandes et al 2005) without considering whether populations will persist. The current state of the art in persistence-based MPA design is to use spatially explicit population models with connectivity estimates drawn from biophysical circulation simulations (White et al 2013).…”

Research advances and gaps in marine planning: towards a global database in systematic conservation planning

“…For example, the Marxan conservation planning software, developed to support the rezoning of the GBR Marine Park (Lewis et al, 2003), was used in 56% of all studies in our database (64% when including Marxan relatives). Along the same lines, the GBR planning hotspot illustrates the importance of some regions in supporting the development of best practices in marine planning more generally; studies describing the GBR Marine Park rezoning (see Fernandes et al, 2005 and referenced studies) have been cited >650 times.…”

“…However, these were accounted for in different ways in some marine SCP studies, for example by using design criteria for size and spacing of MPAs (e.g., Fernandes et al, 2005). Similarly, very few studies (2%) considered the thematic resolution of data (i.e.…”

“…Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape), Eastern Philippines, Papua, Bismarck Sea, Great Barrier Reef, Fiji Islands, Northern California, and the Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Coast and Shelf. In some instances, planning hotspots match the implementation of actions, such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park re-zoning in Australia (Fernandes et al, 2005), the MPA network in California's State waters implemented under the Marine Life Protection Act in the United States , the community-based re-design of MPAs in the Kubulau District in Fiji (Weeks and Jupiter, 2013), and an ongoing process to design and implement an MPA network in Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea (Green et al, 2009). Other planning hotspots, such as the Mediterranean (Micheli et al, 2013) and the Gulf of California (Álvarez-Romero et al, 2013) illustrate cases where information and outputs from previous planning exercises have been used in subsequent planning initiatives (e.g., Álvarez-Romero et al, 2018).…”

“…The distribution of planning hotspots could be partially explained by the existence of legal mandates to revise or designate MPAs (e.g., GBR, Australia: Fernandes et al, 2005; California State Waters, USA: Mediterranean Sea: Micheli et al, 2013), presence of international conservation NGOs (e.g., Papua New Guinea: Green et al, 2009;Fiji: Weeks and Jupiter, 2013), international commitments to undertake planning in biodiversity hotspots (e.g., Coral Triangle Initiative: coraltriangleinitiative.org), availability of information from previous planning exercises or research, and their geographic proximity to countries with organizations with expertise in SCP (Figure 3a). Fully understanding the factors underlying the observed patterns would require a comprehensive analysis (including gray literature) and input from planners, which would be facilitated by the consolidation of a global SCP database.…”