How effective are Australian Marine Parks at protecting EPBC listed species?

Provide a brief description of your project’s key activities and outcomes. You can use the same description as in the online Application Form.

The network of 58 Australian Marine Parks located within Commonwealth waters are utilised by a number of species listed under the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) for a number of different needs including feeding and breeding. The aim of this project is determine which of these species are in need of attention and how Marine Parks Australia can effectively aid their protection and recovery.

We aim to determine to produce presence and absence maps as well as habitat usage maps for selected EPBC listed species. Using data provided in each of the management plans as well as information gathered from stakeholders, we will determine the major threats faced by these species and produce threat maps as well as overlay individual maps to create hotspot maps that will highlight areas in which these species are at greatest risk.

All of this information together with other predetermined criteria, will be used to create a prioritisation method that will rank species based on their current need for attention to order to aid decision-making processes that assist their recovery as efficiently as possible. This method will be replicable and adaptable and can be used by Marine Parks Australia for future projects. We will present an evidence-based list of recommendations regarding how best to invest financial and non-financial resources to produce the best outcome.