Expansion of Macquarie Island Marine Park

● The proposed expansion of one of Australia’s Sub-Antarctic territories – Macquarie Island Marine Park and current zoning design – is highly commended and would see the enhanced protection of one of Australia’s most isolated and unique marine areas.
● The expansion finds the right balance by improving the effectiveness of the marine park to protect its natural values and enhance its resilience to future threats while also allowing the existing, relatively well-managed and sustainable Macquarie Island Toothfish Fishery to continue (see more detail below regarding fishing).
● Since the designation of the marine parks over 20 years ago, our understanding of ecological values and human induced pressures on the marine environment has advanced.
● The proposed expansion and zoning plan are in line with Australia’s commitments to global conservation agreement and targets, and further establishes Australia as a leader in best practice for marine reserve design.
● The proposed expansion is of global significance as it helps to deliver progress on protecting the Southern Ocean.
● There is currently a great deal of international focus on the need to protect the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean is critical to stabilizing our climate and circulating vital nutrients that sustain fish populations across the world. From the food we eat, to our daily weather and global climate, we all rely on this icy southern foundation of our planet.
● From Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s leadership more than 30 years ago to ban mining, to Australia’s current co-sponsorship of the proposed East Antarctic and Weddell Sea marine parks, Australia has continued to be a strong champion for Southern Ocean protection.
● Although the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the body created by the Antarctic Treaty to protect the waters around the Antarctic continent itself, has agreed to create a network of marine parks, geo-political barriers have stood in the way of achieving the necessary consensus between the CCAMLR nations particularly given the war in the Ukraine.
● But in the meantime, Australia is able to move forward in protecting its own Southern Ocean Sub- Antarctic Island territorial waters through the increase in protection around Macquarie Island.
● With climate change placing increasing pressure on ocean ecosystems, it is vital more than ever that countries like Australia with territorial waters in the Southern Ocean forge ahead with improving protection given CCAMLR marine park proposals are stalled at this time.
● The proposed zoning plan is world class. The addition of the large marine national park area, and re-zoning of the habitat protection zone, represents a major advance for Australia’s nationally representative marine reserve network and global conservation efforts by:
○ substantially increasing the coverage of marine national park protection (IUCN II) in Australia
○ advancing progress towards a comprehensive, adequate, and representative reserve system of marine parks in Australia, by including the entire Macquarie Province Bioregion in a marine park with high levels of marine national park protection
○ greatly improving the connectivity between multiple protected areas including the Tasmanian Macquarie Island Nature Reserve, and the Macquarie Island World Heritage Area
○ ensuring the existing sanctuary protection zone remains in place for scientific research and environmental monitoring
○ increasing protection for a large number (57 recorded species) of seabirds of national and global conservation importance – this includes 2 endemic species to Macquarie Island
○ Increasing protection of the foraging habitat of 3 species of fur seals – which all breed on the island, and at least 13 other marine mammals
○ increasing protection of fragile ecosystems and unique habitats, including an extremely isolated fragment of mid-oceanic ridge (Macquarie Ridge), and multiple distinct benthic communities, and unique geological processes and features – it is the only place on earth where rocks from the earth’s mantle are being actively exposed above sea level.
○ increasing protection of the unique range of marine species in the region, including multiple genus of cold-water and deep-sea corals, sponges, sea stars, fish, ophiuroids, anemones, crabs, sea pens, and crinoids, to name a few.
○ protecting some of the few unfished seamounts left in the world in the southern section of the marine park - seamounts are recognised as a vulnerable marine ecosystem, and around half are outside of global EEZ areas - meaning there are no mechanisms to ensure their protection.
○ Protecting one of the few stepping-stones for Sub-Antarctic larval dispersal – a globally important connection point
○ Helping to foster resilience to climate change impacts in a region that is vulnerable to the impacts of a rapidly warming climate.
○ protecting the surrounding waters of an internationally recognised natural world heritage site.
○ improving protection in a globally under-represented marine ecoregion
○ continuing to accommodate the existing, relatively well managed and sustainable commercial fishery in the waters along the Macquarie Ridge to the north, west and south of the islands.
○ Providing best practice in comprehensive, adequate, and representative conservation for 7 of the 9 assessment zones in the Macquarie Island EEZ - these have been recently classified by a team of scientists to better represent the Macquarie Island provincial bioregion and represent distinct areas; the proposed plan has significantly improved representation of the diversity of the natural and physical processes and environments in the Macquarie Island EEZ .
○ ensuring world class protection for the Sub-Antarctic marine ecosystem and many key physical processes that make the waters surrounding Macquarie Island a key migration, feeding, and breeding site for multiple species – including species that are found nowhere else in the world.
● Direct human impacts in the Macquarie Island marine EEZ are mostly limited to fishing and marine debris, but in the future could potentially include other extractive industries such as seabed mining.
● The Macquarie Island Toothfish fishery is the only commercial fishery operating in the region, targeting a deep-water species using bottom longlines mostly in the central zone of the Macquarie Ridge. Its impact is currently relatively low on non-target species assuming that its existing footprint does not increase, and it has minimal impacts on the overall environmental values of the marine EEZ. However, some damage is likely to benthic erect sessile fauna by bottom-set longlines.
● If new fisheries were allowed to develop targeting pelagic or midwater resources these could directly impact the seabirds and marine mammals that forage in the marine EEZ. The proposed zoning for the expanded marine park protects the area from future extractive uses including these more damaging fisheries, seabed mining and bioprospecting.
● The habitat protection zone allows for the continued fishing of toothfish. We support the continuation of the relatively well-managed and sustainable fishery within the habitat protection zone. We recognize that while this leads to some gaps in representation for marine national park zone, it allows for an equitable outcome for the fisheries operating here, who have demonstrated good practice.
● The design does not displace the current commercial fishing in the area. The proposed habitat protection zone includes more area than is currently or historically fished. The fishing companies can meet their total allowable catch quota in an area that is smaller than the proposed habitat protection zone. This means there is no loss to the actual fished area with the increases in marine national park zone in the M-EEZ. This compromise allows for a balance of environmental, social and economic outcomes from the marine park design.