Australian marine protected area policy : towards a national system of marine biosphere reserves

International support for national systems of representative marine protected areas have been set in place by the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) and the National Conservation Strategy of Australia (NCSA). Australia has adopted the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) objectives for marine protected areas through the Commonwealth and State intergovernmental Council of Nature Conservation Ministers (CONCOM). The thesis examines international marine protected area developments and then proceeds to an assessment of existing Commonwealth and State legislative and institutional arrangements for Australian marine protected areas. It argues that existing Commonwealth and State legislative and institutional arrangements for marine protected areas are incapable of meeting WCS/NCSA objectives. The thesis examines how the inherent difficulties of Australian federalism in relation to offshore jurisdictional disputes have influenced marine protected area legislation and have shaped institutional arrangements for meeting these international objectives. An open system of conservation is distinguished from a closed system of conservation by the way it explicitly recognizes that outside activities may compromise the ecological integrity of the marine protected area. Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Queensland is taken as a case study to illustrate the evolution of Commonwealth and State intergovernmental legislative and institutional arrangements, and as a potential model for an open system of conservation meeting WCS/NCSA objectives for marine protected areas. Three options are canvassed for the future operation of an Australian marine protected area system: (1) the status quo; (2) incremental change of existing Commonwealth and State legislative and institutional arrangments; and (3) the introduction of cooperative Commonwealth and State legislative and institutional arrangements in accordance with the United Nations Environment, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Man and The Biosphere (MAB) biosphere reserve programs. Cooperative intergovernmental Commonwealth and State legislative and institutional reform, based on the ecological principles of protected area planning and management of MAB, is advocated as an appropriate framework for a representative Australian system of marine protected areas. A legislative and institutional framework supporting an Australian marine biosphere reserve system is outlined and implications discussed, as are constraints in realizing such a system