Reasons for the Seabed Biodiversity Project

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a unique natural system of national and international significance. Stretching along the Queensland coast from the top of Cape York to Bundaberg, from mean low water mark to deep ocean waters, the Marine Park comprises the world’s largest marine protected area. Along with the healthiest coral reefs in the world, the Marine Park includes many other habitat types such as seagrass meadows, mud and sandflats, gravel and shoal bottoms. While coral reefs are well studied, less is known about the biodiversity of the seabed.

In 2003, CRC Reef Research Centre started a three-year project to map seabed biodiversity throughout the Marine Park. Information gathered during the Project will also help managers to conserve important habitats and rare biodiversity, and to ensure that fisheries within the Park are ecologically sustainable activities.

Conservation

The Great Barrier Reef Seabed Biodiversity Project will add much more detail to bioregional maps of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and will help managers to protect local areas and populations of special importance.

Monitoring

The Project will provide a snap shot of the seabed flora and fauna throughout the Marine Park. This will provide a baseline against which to monitor changes in abundance, diversity, and/or ecological function that may follow the re-zoning of the Marine Park.

Sustainable Fisheries

Queensland legislation requires that fisheries resources in the Marine Park be taken in an ecologically sustainable way. The Project will assist managers in determining whether current harvests, and impacts on non-target species and wider ecosystem values are consistent with the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development.

The Queensland Fisheries Act 1994 specifies that all fisheries in the Marine Park should be conducted in accordance with the principles of ecologically sustainable development. Although trawlers now use devices that reduce the accidental catch of non-target marine life in their nets (bycatch), the impact of trawling on some species is still unknown. The Project will provide quantitative risk assessments for bycatch species. In addition, it will provide accurate stock assessments for fish that have significant populations on deep shoal grounds.