Emeritus Professor in Fisheries Management, Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Bruce ACT, Australia.
Sydney Fish Market, Pyrmont, NSW, Australia and Fisheries Aquaculture and Coasts Centre, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
Adv Mar Biol. 2014;69:253-88. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-800214-8.00007-4.
The magnificence of the Great Barrier Reef and its worthiness of extraordinary efforts to protect it from whatever threats may arise are unquestioned. Yet almost four decades after the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, Australia's most expensive and intensely researched Marine Protected Area, the health of the Reef is reported to be declining alarmingly. The management of the suite of threats to the health of the reef has clearly been inadequate, even though there have been several notable successes. It is argued that the failure to prioritise correctly all major threats to the reef, coupled with the exaggeration of the benefits of calling the park a protected area and zoning subsets of areas as 'no-take', has distracted attention from adequately addressing the real causes of impact. Australia's marine conservation efforts have been dominated by commitment to a National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas. In so doing, Australia has displaced the internationally accepted primary priority for pursuing effective protection of marine environments with inadequately critical adherence to the principle of having more and bigger marine parks. The continuing decline in the health of the Great Barrier Reef and other Australian coastal areas confirms the limitations of current area management for combating threats to marine ecosystems. There is great need for more critical evaluation of how marine environments can be protected effectively and managed efficiently.
大堡礁的壮丽及其值得从任何可能出现的威胁中进行非凡努力保护是毋庸置疑的。然而，在大堡礁海洋公园成立近四十年后，这个澳大利亚最昂贵和研究最深入的海洋保护区，其健康状况据称正在惊人地恶化。尽管已经取得了一些显著的成功，但对珊瑚礁健康构成威胁的综合管理显然是不够的。有人认为，未能正确优先考虑所有对珊瑚礁的主要威胁，再加上夸大将公园称为保护区的好处，并将某些区域划分为“禁捕区”，这分散了人们对充分解决真正影响原因的注意力。澳大利亚的海洋保护工作一直致力于建立国家代表性海洋保护区系统。这样做，澳大利亚用对拥有更多更大海洋公园原则的不充分关键遵守，取代了国际上追求有效保护海洋环境的首要优先事项。大堡礁和其他澳大利亚沿海地区健康状况的持续恶化证实了当前区域管理在应对海洋生态系统威胁方面的局限性。非常需要更严格地评估如何才能有效地保护海洋环境并进行有效管理。
