Marine and coastal issues

Australia’s coastal and marine environments are vital to its economic, recreational, and cultural wellbeing, yet many indicators of marine ecosystem health are declining. Protecting coastal and marine biodiversity and resources against the stressors of coastal development, fishing, oil and gas development, pollution, invasive species and climate change is critically important.

Despite a range of policy commitments to integrated planning and management of marine resources and the coastal zone, current governance approaches are fragmented across various levels of government and sectoral regimes, including those for conservation, fishing, pollution control, biosecurity, and oil and gas and seabed mining.