Great Australian Bight

Background information

Both the SA State and Commonwealth governments have proclaimed marine parks in the Great Australian Bight. However, in their current format, these parks are inadequate to protect the unique marine life and ecosystems along the world's longest south facing shoreline.

The Great Australian Bight is best known as a crucial calving area for the Southern Right Whale, but it also provides vital habitat for the endangered Australian Sea Lion, as well as other types of sea creatures (eg. great white sharks, scores of fish and other whale types). On the ocean floor it also contains a unique but largely unexplored community of plants and animals.

In the 1990s The Wilderness Society campaigned with a number of other conservation groups for greater protection of this area, and Marine Parks were declared in the Commonwealth Waters in 1998, and in State Waters in 1995 and 1996. These parks were mainly concerned with protecting the Southern Right Whales and Australian Sea Lions, but the Commonwealth Park also aimed to offer some protection of a representative sample of the seabed in deeper waters of the Commonwealth park.

The GAB Marine Park (State Waters) hugs the coast at the Head of the Bight and is divided into two zones, a Sanctuary Zone and a Conservation Zone which have differing arrangements for fishing and petroleum exploration and production.

The Commonwealth Park consists of a Marine Mammal Protection Area (MMPA) adjacent to the State waters, and a twelve nautical mile (nm) strip and the Benthic Protection Zone (BPZ) which is a twenty mile wedge extending from the coast 200 miles out into the Bight.

The Wilderness Society's Peter Owen is a conservation representative on the government's stakeholder Consultative Committee.

Head of the Bight, SA

Threats

When it was proclaimed, the Conservation Zone in State Waters (stretching along the coast from Western Australia to Cape Adieu) allowed petroleum exploration for six months of the year, ostensibly when the whales would not be in the area. This would appear illogical because exploration is only useful as a precursor to production which could not be expected to be restricted to a limited time period. Happily, in May 2003 the Labor government announced that it would prohibit mining and exploration activities in the Conservation Zone all year round. This is a welcome step and will bring the area in line with the surrounding State Waters Sanctuary Zone and the Commonwealth MMPA.

The Benthic Protection Zone in the Commonwealth Waters is also a major problem. The Park Management Plan recognises the lack of scientific knowledge about this area, but its conservation has been compromised by the release of petroleum exploration leases covering approximately two thirds of the protected area. Offered for tender by the Commonwealth at the same time as the original Management Plan was being prepared, the leases effectively sealed the destiny of the BPZ as a 'multiple-use' park.

Petroleum exploration in the area has involved seismic testing as well as proposals for core sampling (ie. drilling into the 'protected' ocean floor), and even the CSIRO's recent scientific (mineral exploration) survey in the area also included disruptive processes like dredging and sediment core sampling.

Campaign

The Wilderness Society continues to campaign for greater protection for the Great Australian Bight Marine Park. Greater protection is needed for all species in the Park - not just the icon whales and sea lions. More research is needed to know exactly what is in the Park, and the impacts of fishing and other human activity on the ecosystem. Particular attention is needed to protect the ocean floor, where research and knowledge is poorest and where the goals of the Park are weakest. Mining activity should be banned from the Benthic Protection Zone.

In November 2004 a new draft Management Plan was released for public comment. While there were some conservation improvements in the plan, the basic problems remain. For a full analysis, click here to download The Wilderness Society's comment on the Plan.