The federal government has confirmed its commitment to tackling Australia's extinction crisis by announcing a plan to strengthen protections of globally important waters off the south-east coast.
An area roughly the size of Germany is set to be added to Australia's protected marine zones, safeguarding the future of millions of penguins, seals and sea birds on Macquarie Island.
The remote and rugged island, halfway between the main island of Tasmania and Antarctica, hosts up to 100,000 seals and 4 million penguins, including the royal penguin, which is found nowhere else in the world.
Its shores are the breeding ground for several species of albatross, including the endangered Grey-headed Albatross, and an abundance of sea life that visit its waters, including whales.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek today announced the plan to triple the size of the marine park, most of which will have high-level protections and total fishing bans.
The plan aligns with the government's pledge to protect 30 per cent of Australia's land and 30 per cent of Australia's oceans by 2030.
"Our proposal is that the waters around Macquarie Island — the whole exclusive economic zone — will become marine park," Ms Plibersek told the ABC.
The proposal, which will open for public consultation in March, has been celebrated by conservationists.
"Minister Plibersek said last year that the Albanese government wants to re-establish Australia as a global leader in ocean conservation," Richard Leck from WWF Australia said.
"This is the type of proposal that will help re-establish our leadership."
Fiona Maxwell from Pew Charitable Trusts said the proposal "opens the door to a once-in-a-decade opportunity to increase protection for one of the most unique environments on the planet".
Seafood industry unhappy with proposal
The waters are also home to a fishery which is operated by two companies that catch the expensive and boutique Patagonian toothfish and which the minister says is "operating at world's best practice on reducing bycatch".
"It shows that a sustainable fishery is compatible with conservation."
The government's proposal allows fishing to continue in areas the companies currently operate in, and also allows room for the industry to move or expand in the future.
But the surrounding waters would be off-limits to all fishing.
Veronica Papacosta, chief executive of Seafood Industry Australia, said the proposal sidelined the fishing industry, and the government had been "hijacked" by an environmental group.
Ms Papacosta did not raise any problems about the proposal itself, but said she was angered by "the process" which "sidelined" the industry's views in favour of environmental organisations.
"It puts chills down our spine to think that this is how we're going to move forward with the Albanese government," Ms Papacosta said.
She said the fishing operations in the area were best practice, and should have been rewarded for that.
"What else is on their agenda? What else is it that we're going to have to be OK with and we're going to have to accept as a decision?"
Asked about the industry's response, Ms Plibersek said: "They'll have an opportunity to make any comments they would like to, just as other members of the public will have an opportunity to make any comments during this consultation period in March."
Marine park 'a good start'
Ian Cresswell was a co-chief author of the recent State of the Environment report and led the oceans flagship at the CSIRO as well as sustainable fisheries assessments for the Commonwealth government.
He said the design of the park was well justified by science and it struck the right balance by allowing the existing fishing to continue.
"We've done an analysis that is showing there are multiple different types of environments in the marine area around Macquarie Island and this proposal helps to put them all into protection," he said.
More than 30 per cent of Australia's oceans are already within marine parks, but WWF Australia's Richard Leck said much of that had very little real protection.
"Most of that protection allows industrial-scale fishing and there is much less that is fully protected from all extractive activities," he said.
"WWF is keen that we have 30 per cent in highly protected marine areas — areas that are fully protected from all extractive activities, be that mining, fossil-fuel extraction or fishing activities."
Ms Plibersek acknowledged that call, saying: "This will take us to over 22 per cent of our oceans in that highly protected category, and I think that's a good start and certainly we've got other opportunities."
This year the management plans for 14 marine parks off the coast of Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria will be reviewed.
Together they make up nearly 400,000 square kilometres of protected areas.
While conservation groups will be looking to see protections within those parks strengthened, the fishing industry is already concerned about how that review will proceed.
"If we're going into an environment where actually our concerns, our needs, and our performance isn't taken into account, we have a real issue," Ms Papacosta said.
