Sustainable Industries (Program B)

Program Leader: Ms Anne Clarke, Queensland Dept Primary Industries

The objective of this program is to provide critical information for and about the operations of the key uses of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) that are needed to manage those activities.

The program will:

• Provide key industry-level information for management of the GBRWHA.

• Assess the key operational characteristics, needs, constraints and potential impacts of the major industry sectors in the GBRWHA.

• Where appropriate, seek innovative technologies to allow ecologically and economically sustainable development (ESD).

• Develop tools to reduce uncertainty in the management of key uses for their ecologically sustainable development.

It is often difficult and sometimes controversial to balance the benefits of development with its threats to nature. Successful management hinges on the appropriate regulation of human use, and assumes that the biophysical system will repair itself provided that the impacts of use are small. A thorough understanding of the industries, their needs and their impacts is critical to achieving this balance.

In this program, we aim to provide information about uses of the GBRWHA so that regulation and best practice can be achieved, and so that these uses do not threaten key World Heritage Values of the region and the industries can remain economically and socially viable.

Our focus is on two major industries that rely on the GBRWHA (tourism and fisheries) and one industry that must co-exist with it (port and shipping activities) to provide services to a multitude of land-based industries. We complement this industry focus with a program of engineering and environmental modelling research to provide innovative ways of assisting best-practice, minimum-risk industry development.

For a list of tasks associated with this program, click here.