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This paper provides a brief perspective of how the Australian Defence Force (ADF), and in particular the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), contribute to Australia’s integrated oceans management. The Navy operates, trains, and lives in the coastal and offshore zone and so has a keen interest in oceans policy and the processes of oceans and coastal management.
As detailed in Australia’s Oceans Policy the Challenges for Defence are to:
• Secure Australia’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction over our oceans through the protection of Australia’s national interests and sovereign rights within our maritime jurisdictional areas in cooperation with commercial agencies and other government departments as part of a coordinated national approach; and
• Contribute to a greater understanding of our oceans through the provision of accurate and up-to-date hydrographic, oceanographic and navigational information for Australia’s maritime jurisdictional areas.
Under the general theme of ‘The Prevention of Pollution in the Asia-Pacific Region’, this paper discusses:
• the ADF’s duty of care towards, and stewardship of, the marine environment;
• Defence’s contribution towards regional maritime patrol and governance issues; and
• gives an on the ground example of pollution/environmental management at HMAS STIRLING.
The magnitude of the task of sovereignty and resource protection should be put into context. Australia has one of the largest marine jurisdictions in the world. Effectively exercising Australia’s sovereignty and sovereign rights over this area is an enormous but vital task. It demands that the ADF remain a credible force, well equipped, well trained, well supported and well led. This requires ongoing investment and, for this to be sustainable, it is important that the community understands the important role performed by the ADF in pursuit of Australia’s Oceans Policy.
In essence, effectively exercising Australia’s sovereignty and sovereign rights requires the ADF to maintain a visible presence on and over the sea. This is the role of the RAN and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The RAN maintains a fleet of modern ships equipped for service in the waters about Australia. The RAAF operates maritime patrol aircraft. Together these units patrol Australia’s ocean areas and the adjacent high seas. Through bilateral and multilateral agreements and in accordance with international rights they also operate and patrol widely throughout South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific.
The operational focus has traditionally been northward looking reflecting Australia’s strategic interests and recognising our dependence on maritime trade and the maintenance of freedom of movement for all commercial shipping. It is in Australia’s interests that regional sea-lanes are kept free and open for all lawful activities. More recently, the ADF has also been called upon to protect Australia’s interests in the Southern Ocean.
It is the province of governments, industry and business to explore the oceans, their resources and the seabed of Australia’s maritime jurisdictional zones. It is the role of the ADF to secure and maintain their right to do so within a coordinated national approach.
The Defence Mission is ‘to promote the security of Australia and to protect its people and its interests.’ Clearly, Australia’s interests are inextricably linked to the oceans; for trade, resources, fishing, shipping, tourism, industry and recreation. For Australia to continue to benefit from the oceans, access and freedom of use must be assured.
Australia’s strategic geography suggests we plan on operations which concentrate on defeating aggressors in our maritime approaches, before they reach our territory. This concept of Sea Control is fundamental to the ADF’s strategy for defeating attacks on Australia and emphasises the important place the oceans have in Australia’s security.
Australia’s Oceans Policy advances the vision of ‘Healthy, Productive Oceans, with Benefits for all Australians, Now and in the Future’. The ADF makes an important contribution to the realisation of this vision. This contribution is multi-layered and multi-dimensional and is critical to the policy’s success.
Defence supports the philosophy of multiple use of the oceans. It is an advocate of the principles of responsibility and reciprocity and seeks to establish a pattern of cooperative behaviour amongst all users of Australia’s oceans. The ADF acknowledges its responsibilities for ocean stewardship as well as its duty of care.
While exemptions are provided in legislation and international law for ‘defence of the realm’ activities, the ADF aims to comply at all times with best practice care for the environment and to live up to the principles of sound stewardship as any proud member of the Australian community would do. Interestingly in defence operations, good environmental practice is very sound tactically. We most commonly do not like advertising where we have been and what we have been doing.
The Navy’s approach to helping to solve the Tri-butyl Tin (TBT) antifouling paint pollution issue is a case in point. The IMO antifouling instrument is working towards a global ban on the application of TBT antifouling paints by 2003 with total absence from vessels by 2008. The Oceans Policy commits Australia to a ban on application to ships by 2006 unless the IMO sets an earlier date for such a ban.
While the oceans policy notes Defence operational requirements and acknowledges that Navy may have to retain TBT for some applications, this is not viewed in any sense as a ‘let out’ for Defence, as evidenced by our vigorous search for alternatives.
Mr John Lewis of the Maritime Platforms Division, Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), is currently tasked by Navy with:
research into evaluating a range of alternative and more ‘environmental-friendly’ paints than the currently used TBT based paints for hull anti-fouling systems.
His extensive work has seen him become Australia’s leading public sector specialist in the field and he has provided advice to Defence, Environment Australia (EA) and indeed the IMO on the issue. DSTO have been conducting extensive tests and trials of alternative products and is the only non-commercial work underway in Australia.
Australia’s Oceans Policy has significant implications for the maritime community, which very much includes the ADF. The policy states that the Government will continue to cooperate to review and rationalise the effort involved in and capacity for surveillance and enforcement, including reviewing legislation relating to enforcement in Australia’s marine jurisdictions.
Such a commitment, to what in the past may have been viewed by some in the Defence community as non-core activities, has potential force structure implications for the ADF especially if we are to undertake Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) patrols around the Australian Antarctic Territory.
The Ocean our Future – The Report of the Independent World Commission on the Oceans takes a comprehensive view of maritime security noting that there are numerous threats in the oceans, other than military ones. These include pollution of the marine environment, unsustainable use of oceans resources, illicit trafficking, clandestine movement of persons, piracy, terrorism, congested shipping lanes, and so on. In order to meet these challenges, the Commission recommends (amongst other actions) that:
The role of navies and, where appropriate, other maritime security forces, be reorientated, in conformity with present international law, to enable them to enforce legislation concerning non-military threats that affect security in oceans, including their ecological aspects.
This ‘proposed new’ role for Navies is actually well and truly underway amongst our neighbours in the South West Pacific and is being supported by the Australian Defence Department’s Pacific Patrol Boat Project. This project seeks to enhance sovereignty protection through the provision of 22 Pacific Patrol Boats (PPBs) to 12 countries with associated ongoing adviser, logistics, technical and training support. The project also includes the development of national coordination centres and provides for appropriate back-up for these activities through communications and training support, as well as some infrastructure support. This is a real commitment to the region where these small island countries are facing major problems in developing their capacity to manage very large EEZs.
In three of the recipient countries (Fiji, PNG and Tonga), the vessels are operated by the naval arm or maritime element of the national defence force, in one country (Marshall Islands) by an independent organisation similar to a coast guard, and in all other countries the PPBs are operated as part of the national police force. The PPBs are the only fisheries enforcement assets that these countries have and are used for:
• Maritime fisheries surveillance and enforcement, resulting in recipient countries being able to negotiate higher licence and access fees from foreign fishing vessels;
• Search and rescue operations;
• Sovereignty operations to remote islands and reefs;
• Customs work (anti-smuggling and drug operations), quarantine inspections and occasionally salvage work;
• Transfer of personnel and materiel to outer islands, particularly in situations of disaster relief;
• Medical evacuations, water supply in times of drought; and
• Support of land operations and exercises (PNG, Fiji and Tonga).
Estimated Australian expenditure for defence cooperation in the South Pacific in 1999/00 is $23 million. Significant emphasis is being placed on advisory assistance directed at improving the professionalism of the forces of the South Pacific countries and police forces where regular military forces do not exist. The policy objective for the South Pacific is to strengthen and support sustainable regional and national capabilities which protect the sovereignty of Pacific Island countries and which contribute to their security through economic and social development.
The third point in this paper is the pro-active contribution being made by our shore bases and in particular HMAS STIRLING to oceans management. Garden Island, home to half the Australian Naval fleet at HMAS STIRLING, is an area of 1200ha of Commonwealth land surrounded by 2500 ha of Controlled Naval Waters on the outskirts of Perth.
Garden Island is Commonwealth freehold property, acquired by the Commonwealth in 1915-16. Defence facilities are confined to 30 per cent of the island zoned for development. The remaining 70 per cent is managed for conservation and compatible public recreational access. Public access on the land is governed by Defence Public Areas By-Laws of the Defence Act. The Commanding Officer as Superintendent of Naval Waters also has some capacity to manage access and behaviour in the Naval Waters, which surround the island and flank the causeway. The Commonwealth has been effective in maintaining the island’s high natural and cultural heritage values, as recognised by the Australian Heritage Commission which in 1995 entered Garden Island in the Register of the National Estate.
The environmental management approach for HMAS STIRLING and its home of Garden Island has been a model for Naval Bases in Australia. The Bulletin in 1995 described Garden Island as the jewel in Navy’s crown – a major Defence establishment which is in harmony with its fragile environment.
Defence was well ahead of requirements of the time in its environmental considerations in establishing STIRLING in the early 1970s. However, community standards have sharply risen since then and the Navy has needed to continually improve on its good start to remain a leader.
The bar has been raised yet again with development of Australia’s Oceans Policy. The following provide some highlights and challenges for HMAS STIRLING in achieving the Commonwealth responses in the Policy.
STIRLING is a key participant in regional marine management responses to pressures on the Garden Island region. The Navy assisted in the Southern Metropolitan Coastal Waters Study, coordinated by the WA Department of Environmental Protection, which has defined the quality objectives and zonings for the region’s waters (1999). It successfully lobbied for a catchment management body, the Cockburn Sound Management Council, which is being established this year by the WA Water and Rivers Commission to involve all stakeholders in management of the major water body of which Garden Island forms the western perimeter. The Navy has endorsed a State proposal for a Marine Park to be extended around Garden Island, including the Navy operational areas.
In 1999 and 2000 Defence was a key contributor of funds and personnel support (Clearance Dive Team) to mapping the marine environment of Cockburn Sound, and especially the remnant seagrass meadows. Only 10 per cent of the original meadows remain, as a result of industrial and sewage pollution, and virtually all of these remnants are in the Controlled Naval Waters flanking Garden Island.
The Commonwealth has committed to developing an agreed approach to managing new incursions of marine pests. In 1999, STIRLING helped fund and provided Dive Team support for a survey of marine pests in the Port of Fremantle-Cockburn Sound area. The survey, coordinated by the Fremantle Port Authority and conducted by the Centre for Research on Introduced Marine Pests, provides the basis for on-going monitoring, ready-response and establishing protocols for ship movement between ports. Navy vessels were caught up in the response to the recent striped mussel infestation at Darwin and the Navy understands the threat that marine pests and control protocols can have on operational capability.
STIRLING based ships are involved in defending Commonwealth fisheries in the Antarctic. On a local basis, STIRLING works with the WA Fisheries department to provide access to commercial and recreational fishing in Naval Waters and to enforce catch regulations. The fisheries in Naval Waters include lobster, crab, abalone and scale fish.
After a long period of negotiation, Fisheries WA will be establishing mussel farm leases this year in Naval Waters close to the STIRLING wharves. No major environmental impacts were foreseen but TBT pollution from antifoulant paint on Navy vessels was a potential threat to the mussels that needed to be thoroughly investigated.
Garden Island, WA
Since the Defence Reform Program, environmental expertise and resourcing has been provided by the Defence Estate Organisation. Thus at STIRLING, the Environmental Manager is also responsible for other areas, including the RAAF Pearce air base. For this base, which is situated on a tributary of Perth’s Swan River, the State Government and Defence have obtained Commonwealth Coast and Clean Seas funding (Natural Heritage Trust) to trial innovative systems for nutrient uptake. Nutrients from this catchment are a major contributant to pollution of not only the Swan River, where toxic algal blooms occurred this past summer, but also of Cockburn Sound at Garden Island. The nutrients from Defence land come from a sewage farm, where trials of irrigation of tree and pasture crops are taking place, and from buffer farmlands, where state of the art nutrient stripping wetlands are being established.
In summary the three issues highlighted in this paper are only a snapshot of the ADF activities which align with Australia’s overall approach to integrated oceans management. I have tried to outline:
• The enormity of the task and Navy’s commitment to the environment through a continued demonstration that our activities are based upon the principles of sound seamanship and environmental duty of care and stewardship;
• Activities underway throughout the South West Pacific to improve oceans governance; and
• Realtime events underway in our support bases to prevent marine pollution in our region.
I would conclude by saying that the ADF’s involvement with coastal and maritime issues must always be viewed in the context of the Australian Government’s fundamental responsibility to provide for the security of Australia, its people and its interests, as reflected in the Australian Defence Mission of ‘to prevent or defeat the use of armed force against our country or its interests’.
[*] Paper presented at the ‘Prevention of Maritime Pollution in the Asia Pacific Region’ Workshop held in Townsville 8-12 May 2000
[†] Commander Wark is the Deputy Director Environmental Management – Navy at Australian Defence Headquarters in Canberra.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MarStudies/2000/29.html
