Marine and estuarine reserves in Australia with particular reference to New South Wales.

Abstract

A gradual realization throughout the world that the resources of the oceans and estuaries are becoming more affected by the impacts of man, has highlighted an urgent need for the reservation of representation areas of marine and estuarine ecosystems. This idea of marine parks and reserves as a logical extension of the terrestrial park concept into the underwater realm, seems, like that of terrestrial national parks, to have flowered originally in the USA. The concept was given impetus by the first World Conference on National Parks held in Seattle in 1962 which “recognized that the oceans and their life are subject to the same dangers of human interference and destruction as the land, and encouraged that the governments of all countries with marine frontiers examine, as a matter of urgency, the possibility of creating marine parks and reserves”. (Randall 1971). Further impetus was given to the concept by a special symposium on marine parks held at the Eleventh Pacific Science Congress in Tokyo in 1966 and the International Conference on Marine Parks and Reserves, also held in Tokyo, in 1975.