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Australia’s world-leading program of marine planning and management will be brought directly under federal environment law to provide a clearer focus on conservation and sustainable management of the marine environment and offer greater certainty for industry. The Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, has announced that the Government would bring its program of regional marine planning under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act). The new initiative with regional marine planning will see Marine Bioregional Plans, including a system of Marine Protected Areas, established over Australia’s 14 million square kilometre ocean jurisdiction.
The EPBC Act and associated Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000 (EPBC Regulations) provide a national framework for environment protection through a focus on protecting matters of national environmental significance and on the conservation of Australia’s biodiversity. Chapter 1, Part 15 of the EPBC Act sets out the legal requirements for establishing and managing Commonwealth reserves, which include marine protected areas. Chapter 6, Part 19 of the EPBC Act sets out the functions and powers of the office of Director of National Parks. Division 12 of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000 details the prohibitions or restrictions on many activities in Commonwealth reserves. Other parts of the Act and regulations are also relevant to managing Commonwealth reserves. It should be noted that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is covered by a separate piece of legislation (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975) and as such it is managed directly by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).
Senator Campbell said that the EPBC Act is one of the most comprehensive pieces of environment protection legislation anywhere in the world and this initiative will add new drive to the implementation of Australia’s Oceans Policy. ‘The new process will streamline marine planning and management and provide the additional guidance and consistency that has been sought by industry and other users of the marine environment,’ Senator Campbell said.
Under the new approach, Marine Bioregional Plans will be established under section 176 of the EPBC Act, acting as a key guidance document for the Minister, sectoral managers and industry about the pertinent conservation issues and priorities in each marine region. The plans will draw on Australia’s growing marine science and socioeconomic information base to provide a detailed picture of each marine region. The plans will describe each region’s key habitats, plants and animals; natural processes; human uses and benefits; and threats to the long-term ecological sustainability of the region. Senator Campbell said the Government would be briefing stakeholders to explain the new approach.
Further background on Australia’s Oceans Policy and regional marine planning is available online at http://www.oceans.gov.au/the_oceans_policy_overview. jsp
Australia’s long geographic isolation has led to high levels of endemicity within its flora and fauna, with high proportions of each taxonomic group unique to our region. The Australian Marine Jurisdiction (AMJ) is also one of the largest in the world and encompasses the five major climate zones, from tropical to polar. These features, along with the variety of geomorphology around our 60,000+ km coastline, have resulted in a wide range of habitat types that support a vast diversity of species, ecological communities and ecosystems. Examples of our marine habitats include:
• estuaries (>1000, only 50% considered to be pristine)
• rocky reefs (estimated to support 50% of our temperate fisheries)
• coral reefs (360 coral species in GBR; 300 species in Ningaloo, WA)
• mangrove systems (43 species, the highest in the world)
• seagrass systems (30 species, the highest in the world)
• sponges – one third of the world’s estimated 15,000 species
• beaches and dunes (50% of our coastline)
• Antarctic coastline and islands
Australia is considered to be one of the 12 mega-diverse nations of the world, and as the only developed country in this group, bears considerable responsibility internationally for biodiversity conservation. With some six per cent of the Southern Hemisphere in the AMJ we can also be expected to have a significant proportion of total global marine biodiversity under our care. About one-sixth of the world’s 1.5 million described species are marine, however it is estimated that marine life represents some two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity. For example, of the 32 or so invertebrate phyla, 31 occur in the oceans, 15 in freshwater habitats and 10 on land. It has also been suggested that the unexplored deep-sea (representing about 60 per cent of Earth’s surface) could hold tens of millions of undiscovered species and recent estimates suggest that deep-sea diversity is much higher than in any other marine habitat, perhaps rivalling tropical rainforests in total species numbers.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of genomes (the genetic material specifying all characteristics and functions within an organism), species and ecosystems. It is the foundation for understanding and predicting how human and natural effects can change ocean ecosystems. An understanding of the diversity of genes responsible for individual species’ adaptations and responses to their environment (intraspecific diversity) is a foundation for understanding almost all ecological and evolutionary processes. Marine biological diversity is changing, dramatically in some cases, and the most recent changes are due to broad-scale human activities. However, our ability to evaluate the scale and ultimate consequences to life in the sea of a plethora of anthropogenic effects is limited by our inadequate knowledge of marine biodiversity and the patterns and processes that control it.
Adequate understanding of what creates and maintains diversity is a core scientific underpinning for policy and management decisions regarding pollutant and waste disposal, habitat alteration, fisheries resources, and the preservation of threatened species. Not knowing how many species are in a community severely limits our ability to predict the fate of that community under different kinds of anthropogenic stresses. Not knowing the identity of species in a community severely limits our ability to compare different systems and to understand the biology and ecology of such organisms by comparing them to their better-known relatives. Our current inability to provide such detailed taxonomic and ecological information to policy makers may have important implications for the conservation of marine life and the sustainable use of marine resources.
Australian marine taxonomy is in crisis. Our relatively small pool of taxonomic experts are ageing rapidly – without a well-established ‘next-generation’ in place. Taxonomic services and training remain under supported. While the task of classifying marine life is enormous and challenging, new technologies can open opportunities and accelerate discoveries. The rise of molecular/genetic techniques and tools has revolutionised species characterisation, particularly for microscopic organisms. In fact it is estimated that 1030 microbe cells in the ocean constitute more than 90 per cent of the mass of living things in the oceans. The cytochrome oxidase 1 gene in the mitochondria of cells has been nominated for the ‘barcode’ of marine animals. Such genetic barcodes can assist the few marine taxonomists to focus their precious powers of description on the new and the special. Both these complementary streams of systematics, the classical, descriptive taxonomy and the new molecular/genetic methods require trained personnel. The lack of current expertise combined with the huge number of undescribed and undiscovered species in the AJM make up Australia’s Mega Marine Biodiversity Gap.
Useful References:
http://www.deh.gov.au/soe/2001/coasts/index.html
http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/butman01/butman01.html
http://www.austmus.gov.au/invertebrates/pdf/marineoverview.pdf
Dr G. M. Newton
National President
Australian Marine Sciences Association
Courtesy Waves, Journal of the Marine & Coastal Community Network, vol. 10, no. 4, Autumn 2005.
The IMO Guidelines on Ship Recycling were adopted on 5 December 2003. They were developed to provide guidance to flag, port and recycling States, shipowners, ship recycling facilities, ship builders and marine equipment suppliers as to ‘best practice’, which takes into account the ship recycling process throughout the life cycle of the ship. The Guidelines seek to encourage recycling as the best means to dispose of ships at the end of their operating lives; provide guidance in respect of the preparation of ships for recycling and minimising the use of potentially hazardous materials and waste generation during a ship’s operating life; foster inter-agency cooperation and encourage all stakeholders to address the issue of ship recycling.
The Guidelines take into account the ‘Industry Code of Practice on Ship Recycling’[1]
and complement other international guidelines addressing this issue; notably those produced under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal focusing on issues related to ship recycling facilities,[2]
and those of the International Labour Organization addressing working conditions at the recycling facilities.[3]
They place a significant emphasis on the identification of potentially hazardous materials on board ships prior to recycling and introduce the concept of the Green Passport. The Green Passport for ships is a document providing information with regard to materials known to be potentially hazardous utilised in the construction of the ship, its equipment and systems. This document should accompany the ship throughout its operating life and successive owners of the ship should maintain the accuracy of the Green Passport and incorporate into it all relevant design and equipment changes, with the final owner delivering the document, with the ship, to the recycling facility.
Acknowledging that a number of the problems associated with ship recycling might be addressed at the design and construction stage, the Guidelines encourage ship designers and shipbuilders to take due account of the ship’s ultimate disposal when designing and constructing a ship.
The use of materials which can be recycled in a safe and environmentally sound manner, the minimisation of the use of materials known to be potentially hazardous to health and the environment, the consideration of structural designs that could facilitate ship recycling and the promotion of the use of techniques and designs which, without compromising safety or operational efficiency, contribute towards the facilitation of the recycling operation are some of the recommendations provided by the guidelines with regard to the design and construction of ships.
Manufacturers of marine equipment that contains hazardous substances are also encouraged to design the equipment so as to facilitate the safe removal of those substances, or give advice as to how such substances can be safely removed at the end of the working life of the equipment.
Minimisation of the use of potentially hazardous substances and of waste generation is also recommended for the lifetime of ships and shipowners are encouraged to make every effort to minimise the amount of potentially hazardous materials on board the ship, including those carried as stores, during routine or major maintenance operations or major conversions and to continuously seek to minimise hazardous waste generation and retention during the operating life of a ship and at the end of a ship’s life.
The Guidelines also provide a number of recommendations with regard to the preparation of a ship for recycling, which should begin before the ship arrives at the recycling facility. These preparations include, amongst others: the selection of a recycling facility which has the capability to recycle the ships it purchases in a manner consistent with national legislation and relevant international conventions; the development of a recycling plan by the recycling facility in consultation with the shipowner, ensuring a that ship has been prepared to the maximum extent possible prior to its recycling and that the safety of the ship prior to delivery has been taken into account; preparations to protect occupational health and safety, such as issue of gas-free/hot work certificates, marking of any oxygen-deficient compartments onboard and identification of any area of the ship where there may be structural integrity problems or critical support structures, and preparations to prevent pollution, such as minimisation of the quantities of fuel, diesel, lubricating, hydraulic and other oils and chemicals on board at delivery to the facility, removal of wastes at appropriate port reception facilities, and controlled drainage, by the recycling facility, of potentially harmful liquids from the ship.
The Guidelines provide guidance to all stakeholders in the ship recycling process. This includes flag, port and recycling States, authorities of shipbuilding and maritime equipment supplying countries, as well as relevant intergovernmental organisations and commercial bodies such as shipowners, ship- builders, marine equipment manufacturers, repairers and recycling facilities. Additional stakeholders include workers, local communities, and environmental and labour bodies.
The Guidelines also refer to the role of the ILO, the Basel Convention and the London Convention 1972/1996 Protocol, making reference to their relevant provisions and guidelines applicable to ship recycling.
Finally, the Guidelines suggest that national or regional organisations should cooperate with governments in ship recycling states and other interested parties on projects involving the transfer of technology or aid funding to improve facilities and working practices in the recycling facilities.
Courtesy IMO News, no. 2, 2005
[1] In cooperation with other industry organisations, ICS has produced the ‘Industry Code of Practice on Ship Recycling’, outlining the measures that shipowners should be prepared to take prior to recycling (see www.marisec.org/recycling).
[2] Technical Guidelines for the Environmentally Sound Management of the Full and Partial Dismantling of Ships adopted by the Sixth Meeting of the conference of Parties to the Basel Convention on 13 December 2002 (see www.basel.int/ships/techguid.html).
[3] Safety and Health in Shipbreaking: Guidelines for Asian countries and Turkey, developed by ILO (see www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/sectors/shipbrk/index.htm).
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MarStudies/2005/33.html