Marine park

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

A marine park is a park consisting of an area of sea (or lake) sometimes protected for recreational use, but more often set aside to preserve a specific habitat and ensure the ecosystem is sustained for the organisms that exist there. Most marine parks are designated by governments, and organized like 'watery' national parks.

The largest marine park used to be the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia, at 350,000 km² until 2010, when the United Kingdom announced the opening of the Chagos Marine Park or Chagos Archipelago.

Although for many uses it is sufficient to designate the boundaries of the marine park and to inform commercial fishing boats and other maritime enterprises, some parks have gone to additional effort to make their wonders accessible to visitors. These can range from glass-bottomed boats and small submarines, to windowed undersea tubes.

In New Zealand a marine reserve is an area which has a higher degree of legal protection than marine parks for conservation purposes.

In New South Wales, there are planned marine parks which will stretch along the coastline of the entire state.

Marine parks around the globe

Africa

Americas

Canada

Asia

Hong Kong

India

Indonesia

Malaysia

Philippines

Singapore

Taiwan

Thailand

Europe

High seas

As of April 2008 there are no high seas marine reserves, but Greenpeace is campaigning for the "doughnut holes" of the western pacific to be declared as marine reserves.[2] They are also campaigning for 40 percent of the world’s oceans to be protected as marine reserves.[3]

Oceania

Australia

Commonwealth of Australia

The Australian Government manages an estate of marine protected areas (MPA) that are Commonwealth reserves under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

New South Wales

These are referred aquatic reserves declared under the Fisheries Management Act 1994

Queensland
South Australia

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

As of December 2013, the following marine parks have been declared under the Marine Parks Act 2007 (SA) :[4]

  • Eastern Spencer Gulf Marine Park
  • Encounter Marine Park
  • Far West Coast Marine Park
  • Franklin Harbor Marine Park
  • Gambier Islands Group Marine Park
  • Investigator Marine Park
  • Lower South East Marine Park
  • Lower Yorke Peninsula Marine Park
  • Neptune Islands Group Marine Park
  • Nuyts Archipelago Marine Park
  • Sir Joseph Banks Group Marine Park
  • Southern Kangaroo Island Marine Park
  • Southern Spencer Gulf Marine Park
  • Thorny Passage Marine Park
  • Upper Gulf St Vincent Marine Park
  • Upper South East Marine Park
  • Upper Spencer Gulf Marine Park
  • West Coast Bays Marine Park
  • Western Kangaroo Island Marine Park
Victoria

<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>

The state of Victoria has protected approximately 5.3% of coastal waters. In June 2002, legislation was passed to establish 13 Marine National Parks and 11 Marine Sanctuaries. Victoria is the first jurisdiction in the world to create an entire system of highly protected Marine National Parks at the same time.[5] Additional areas are listed as Marine Parks or Marine Reserves, which provides a lower level of protection and allows activities such as commercial and recreational fishing.

The marine national parks are:

Micronesia

New Zealand

Papua New Guinea

Samoa

References

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.