Synthesis of environmental values to support the review of Australian Marine Park management plans

The approach to managing AMPs is set out in eight management plans, one for each of the five marine park networks (North, North-west, South-west, South-east and Temperate East) and one each for the Coral Sea Marine Park, Christmas Island Marine Park and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park. A statutory review of AMP management plans for the North, North-west, South-west, Temperate-East networks and the Coral Sea Marine Park is scheduled for 2028.

This project will support the statutory review of AMP management plans. It will synthesise relevant hub project findings and other work contracted by Parks Australia dating back to 2017 and integrate these findings into Parks Australia’s processes in 2027. A catalogue of available data and a synthesis report for each network and the Coral Sea AMP (not including the South-east network) will include:

• a summary of science activity and outputs since 2017;
• summaries of natural values status and pressures since 2017, aggregated to ecosystem component, ecosystem depth contour, zone and AMP where possible.

The project will also review data summaries, workflows and reporting tools used to develop the synthesis reports and provide recommendations on better integrating this infrastructure to support AMP and national environmental impact and assessment reporting.

Approach

The National Environmental Science Program (NESP), through the Marine and Coastal Hub and its predecessor the Marine Biodiversity Hub, has invested heavily in research to understand the status and trend of natural values in AMPs and improving socio-economic value estimates (see the topic Protected place management).

NESP researchers have worked with Parks Australia to develop a management effectiveness system that relies on collecting monitoring data on assets and pressures occurring in AMPs. Ongoing hub research is developing monitoring protocols for natural assets, establishing data reporting frameworks for sentinel parks (AMPs earmarked for intensive monitoring) and providing the capability to consolidate zone and park-level data to the network level.

This project is a national-scale desktop synthesis of existing data and knowledge. It will involve close collaboration with Parks Australia, including through an initial workshop and ongoing discussion to ensure the project meets the needs of research users.

National marine data platforms including SQUIDLE+, GlobalArchive, the Australian Ocean Data Network and Seamap Australia will be used to provide user-friendly data summaries and reporting.

All project outputs (including metadata) will be made available through the Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN) catalogue in accordance with the hub’s Data Management and Accessibility Guidelines and Data Management Strategy. Data and information will be managed in accordance with FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) and CARE (collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, ethics) principles.

Expected outcomes

Parks Australia will be better equipped to assess the management effectiveness of AMPs for the period 2017–27. This includes key components of AMP management plan statutory reviews in 2028 as required under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The information synthesis will also strengthen the evidence base for national state of the environment reporting, management of state marine parks and emerging impact assessment reporting.

Project location