73 BURDEKIN DRY TROPICS NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2016-2026
cent being plastics. Much of this plastic litter begins its journey to the ocean from towns and cities. The further downstream it travels, the harder it is to manage with increasing costs for clean-up operations. Plastic litter is a hazardous pollutant which is expected to persist in environments around the globe( Tangaroa Blue, 2016).
6. Offshore use
The health of the Great Barrier Reef is declining and its overall outlook is poor and expected to further deteriorate in the future( The Great Barrier Reef Water Science Taskforce, and the Office of the Great Barrier Reef, Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, 2016).
• Between 1985 and 2012 almost half the coral cover on mid-shelf and off shore reefs has declined;
• Seagrass abundance south of Cooktown has declined since 2009; and
• The dugong population south of Cooktown has drastically declined from 1962 levels.
The GBR is facing a number of serious challenges. As previously discussed climate change( ocean warming, ocean acidification, intensification of storm events) is the most significant long-term threat to the GBR and while there are efforts to reduce global emissions, the focus must also be on reducing the full range of pressures on the GBR to improve its resilience. Improving water quality now is the highest priority to building the GBR’ s resilience and its capacity to recover from climate change related disturbances( refer to Part B – Water). long-term sustainability and contributions to the community of the competing industries. While some industries may lead to short-term increases in our regional economies, if their impacts are irreversible this will lead to the longterm demise of not only our natural asset, but also dependent industries and communities. Known impacts to the GBR should be actively remediated where possible to re-establish ecosystem processes and values, thereby ensuring the long-term sustainability of reliant industries such as fishing and tourism.
Improving biodiversity management
It is vital that the data and mapping of our region’ s ecosystems is comprehensive, up-to-date and reliable, because all statutory and non-statutory biodiversity planning and management decisions are based on this information. If the data is outdated, unreliable, inaccurate or doesn’ t even exist, this can lead to uninformed decisions that have serious consequences for our region’ s biodiversity. As an example, Essential Habitat mapping for EVNT species in our region is either outdated or doesn’ t include all listed species, resulting in loss of habitat for listed species through region-wide incremental clearing.
Furthermore, we must provide opportunities for information sharing between‘ science’ and the community on our region’ s significant biodiversity, the significant threats and the opportunities to increase the community’ s capacity to participate in managing and protecting it for future generations.
BIODIVERSITY
It is also imperative to the GBR’ s resilience that there is coordinated management of activities that directly use or access the GBR, including port development, increased use of shipping passages, dredging as well as commercial and recreational fishing and tourism. Development and traffic within the sensitive marine environment risk directly destroying offshore ecosystems, including displacing seagrass meadows and reef ecologies.
Planning and decision making for competing activities in the GBR need to give consideration to long-term environmental impacts, as well as the
In 2015, NQ Dry Tropics implemented the internationally recognised‘ Open standards for the practice of biodiversity conservation’ as formalised in a Conservation Action Planning( CAP) framework. The CAP process brings together the regional community to make decisions on biodiversity management in a collaborative and coordinated fashion and then strategically invest in on-ground operational activities to protect, maintain and restore biodiversity. The process will deliver this by:
• identifying the area’ s biodiversity of interest and its current and desired status;
• identifying the most critical current