A wealth of science published over the last 150-160 years has been bought together to underpin the planning for marine parks in South Australia. This science has formed the basis of three critical areas of investigation including:
- what species and habitats exist in South Australia that are worthy of conservation,
- what risks do human activities present to the conservation of these species and habitats and
- what strategies are available to us to ensure the long term conservation and protection of these species and habitats.
This science has been the work of dozens of Scientists many of whom have spent their lifetime enriching our knowledge and understanding of marine and coastal ecosystems of South Australia.
The earliest work to understand the ecology and biodiversity of our coastal waters began in the mid 1800’s (including work by the great British naturalist William Henry Harvey) and continued into and throughout the last century resulting in the publication of literally hundreds of research papers, books and popular press articles describing the richness and uniqueness of the flora and fauna of the South Australian coastline. Work by such eminent scientists as Prof. Bryan Womersley (1922-2011) told us that southern Australian coastlines have a richer flora and fauna than any comparable region anywhere else in the world with around (60-90%) of the species being endemic (not found anywhere else in the world). From this we know that for many of these species, if we do not protect them here in South Australia they will not be protected anywhere else.
With an understanding of what species are present we subsequently developed our knowledge about the threats to the marine environment and the long term survival of these species. Over that time we have identified numerous activities or processes that will impact and degrade marine ecosystems including stormwater, waste water and industrial pollution, dredging, fishing, aquaculture, the introduction of invasive species and not least ocean warming and acidification through climate change. From this work we have also developed an understanding that you cannot manage these impacts in isolation. In most cases the greatest threats to the marine environment come from the combined effect of many impacting process.
Over more recent times (the last 20-30 years) science has been used to address questions about how best to manage and protect natural resources and ecosystems in order to ensure benefits both now and into the future. Through this work we have developed our knowledge about the use of different management regimes to address, for example, the effects of fishing, pollution, aquaculture, dredging and the myriad of other processes that are a part of human impacts on global biodiversity.
On balance the key outcome from this work has been an understanding that:
- It is easier and less costly to protect environments from harm than to try and rehabilitate damaged ecosystems. This is as true for the fishing industry as any other where over-fishing can lead to long term social and economic impacts while fish stocks are being rebuilt.
- No-take sanctuary zones provide an important tool for the management of diverse impacts on ecosystems. No-take sanctuary zones provide us with areas where ecological process and integrity are preserved which in turn provides an insurance policy against management failures in areas that are being otherwise utilised.
