The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has declared Australia will soon protect more ocean than any other country after the government finalises a more than 300,000 square kilometre expansion of a sub-Antarctic marine park.
Speaking ahead of what was billed as a global nature positive summit starting in Sydney on Tuesday, Plibersek confirmed the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve about 4,000 km south-west of Perth would quadruple in size.
She said the decision meant Australia would protect 52% of its ocean territory, far more than the global 30% target by 2030 that the government signed up to two years ago.
Science organisations planned to use the summit to highlight what they say is Australian governments’ failure to invest at the level needed to protect the environment, which a major government review found was in poor and deteriorating health.
An alliance of 27 environment groups under the banner Save Our Marine Life largely welcomed the marine park announcement but said some areas important to albatross, penguins, seals and fish had not been given the sanctuary-level protection that scientists had recommended.
The Pew Charitable Trusts’ national oceans manager, Fiona Maxwell, said the two islands were “wildlife havens”, and the decision meant the bulk of the waters around them would be free from mining and the creation of new pelagic fisheries targeting mackerel icefish and Patagonian toothfish.
But she said important undersea canyons and seamounts had not been included in sanctuaries. “Even the government’s own science report said there was inadequate protection for a range of seafloor habitats, foraging areas for albatross and macaroni penguins, and areas supporting an abundance and variety of fish,” Maxwell said.
Plibersek said she was proud that the decision to increase the marine park meant Australia protected more ocean “than any country on Earth”. “This is not just a huge environmental win for Australia, it’s a huge environmental win for the world,” she said. “This is a unique and extraordinary part of our planet. We are doing everything we can to protect it.”
Located about 1,700 km from Antarctica, Heard and McDonald Islands are home to glaciers, wetlands and Australia’s only active volcanoes. Scientists say they are one of the places on the planet least disturbed by humans.
Plibersek’s announcement adds habitat protection zones and national park areas with a total size roughly equivalent to Italy to existing sanctuary zones, which have the highest level of conservation. It follows a public consultation period that began in June. The government tripled the size of the Macquarie Island Marine Park, another sub-Antarctic area, last year.
WWF’s head of oceans, Richard Leck, welcomed what he called a significant expansion on the park, but said he was concerned fishing would still be allowed in some high conservation value areas. “This is a missed opportunity to truly deliver world class protection for Heard and McDonald Islands,” he said.
Funding is ‘crucial piece’
The summit comes as the government is attempting to win support in parliament for legislation that would define “nature positive” and create an environment protection agency.
The 30 by 30 Alliance, a group of conservation, land management and scientific experts, said financing for nature protection and restoration from all sources must increase dramatically if Australia was to meet its targets of protecting 30% of land and ocean by the end of the decade in a meaningful way.
The alliance’s Jason Lyddieth said funding was the “crucial piece” missing from the Australian government’s claim that it was leading the way of the environment. He said the Albanese government allocated 0.1% of its spending to nature. Along with other campaigners and scientists, he said this should be closer to 1%.
It should include $5bn for the establishment of a fund to buy and protect land of high biodiversity importance, he said. “If just 1% of federal spending was dedicated to protecting nature we would be well on the way to stopping extinctions and ensuring nature is healthy for future generations. The public supports this too,” Lyddieth said.
The Biodiversity Council said a “first-pass assessment” had found the Australian government spent about 50 times more subsidising activities that damaged the environment – including clearing and degradation of nature for mining, agriculture, native forest logging and road construction – than on helping biodiversity.
