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Executive Summary
Tourism has been identified as a critical issue in the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP). About 1.6 million tourists visit the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) region each year, and generate an income of over $1 billion per year in direct value. A further estimated one million visitor nights per year are spent in accommodation on island resorts within the boundaries of the GBRMP. The rapid increase in numbers of tourists and development of tourism infrastructure development on the GBR which caused great concern in the 1980s has stabilised since 1995. Recreational use of the GBR region by coastal residents is also high, and in many circumstances, the impacts of recreational users can be impossible to separate from those of commercial tourism activities.
Tourism on the GBR is geographically concentrated, with 85% of tourist visitation taking
place in the Cairns and Whitsundays Areas, which cover about 7% of the area of the Marine Park and are the focus for tourism management. As a result, impacts of tourism are low and diffuse over the remaining Park area. Advances in transport technology may result in greater access by mass tourism operations to currently inaccessible regions of the reef and could affect the distribution and management of tourism impacts in the future.
Impacts of marine tourism can be broadly categorised as ecological, social and cultural. The major types of marine tourism impacts include:
· coastal tourism development (population pressures, construction activities);
· island-based tourism infrastructure (marinas, sewage discharge, construction);
· marine-based tourism infrastructure (pontoons, moorings, fish feeding);
· boat-induced damage (anchoring, ship grounding, litter, waste discharge);
· water based activities (diving, snorkelling, reef walking, fishing);
· wildlife interactions (seabirds, turtle-watching, whale-watching).
Activities associated with construction activity and structures are regulated under permit requirements. Planning should take into account cumulative impacts but these can be difficult to assess and management tools to contain such impacts can be contentious and difficult to implement. Legislation requires monitoring of waste water discharges, and tertiary treatment is required of any sewage effluent released into the GBRMP.
The best studied of tourism impacts are those associated with pontoons, anchoring and
diving. A series of extensive impact assessments has found that impacts of pontoons on the surrounding reef areas are minimal, apart from the ‘footprint’ under the pontoon and its moorings. Anchoring of both tourist and recreational boats is a significant issue in heavily visited sites in the Marine Park. Anchors and anchor chains are capable of breaking multiple coral colonies at each drop. Management of anchoring impacts includes installation of both private and public moorings, ‘no-anchor’ areas in heavily used places such as some of the Whitsunday Islands, and an education program for boaters, promoting codes-of-practice.
The impacts of diving and snorkelling have been well studied both in Australia and
overseas. Most divers do not break corals, but a small percentage of divers who swim too close to the coral may break many coral branches on each dive. Fragile branching corals are the most susceptible to breakage. Internationally, the carrying capacity of coral reefs has been determined to be about 5,000 divers per site per year. Above this level of dive intensity, environmental deterioration has been noted. Because of the large choice of dive sites available, no GBR sites currently appear to approach this level of diving activity. Some studies of snorkellers have detected larger numbers of broken corals in active snorkel areas, including snorkel trails, but the level of breakage levelled off quickly and did not increase over time. Recommendations for reducing diver and snorkeller impacts, such as dive briefings and careful selection of sites have been taken up by the diving industry.
Because tourism is an important commercial activity on the GBR and involves millions of
visitors each year, it requires careful management by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
Authority (GBRMPA) and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Tourism is
managed on the GBR by a combination of zoning plans, plans of management of intensively used sites, codes-of-practice, and permits. Changes in the volume and profile of tourism on the GBR in the last 20 years mean that tourism management is presently under revision. The new approach being considered is based on a reef-wide strategic framework that promotes mandatory performance standards rather than proscriptive permits. Education and training remains an important component of tourism management. An Environmental Management Charge, introduced in 1993, is collected for each reef visitor and contributes to the funding of research, education and Marine Park management.
Surveys of tourists and the east Australian community have reported a perception that
tourism activity is one of the three greatest threats to the GBR. Of the people surveyed, 53% perceived that tourism activities and tourism infrastructure had a large or very large impact on the GBR. In comparison, reports from scientists and conservationists on threats to the GBR rate inshore water quality, overfishing, predation by crown of thorns starfish and coral bleaching as of greatest concern. It may be necessary to provide the community and tourists with better information about the GBR and its management to ensure public perception of threats to the GBR is based on the best available information.
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