Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and associated marine territories have a combined area more than twice its landmass and utilisation of the EEZ by marine industries is estimated to double in value by the year 2020 (PMSEC 1995). Major recent national inquiries (RAC 1993, SOMER 1995) highlight the lack of strategic long-term research, monitoring and integrated planning in policies for developing and conserving the marine and coastal environments. The need to understand and protect Australia's unique marine environments is increasing exponentially as degradation of habitats, and consequently the biota they support, worsens (Cognetti and Curini-Galletti, 1993).
Politically, Australia is both blessed with the asset and burdened with the responsibility of managing its unique megadiversity. Vast areas of the EEZ are unexplored and the biota remains largely undescribed or undiscovered; about one-third of the currently known fish species have been discovered only since 1980. One current view is that marine species are best managed through maintenance of their critical habitat. Similarly, in only a few parts of the region have such habitats been defined and in such cases we have only a poor understanding of their coverage.
The bioregionalisation project described below is a step towards objectively addressing this immense problem. A management framework that encapsulates the mesoscale biotic structure of the region is needed. Biogeographic provinces, which cast a contemporary reflection on past evolutionary trends within the region, are such units. Each province can be treated as a biotic entity in which its unique community/habitat linkages can be explored and its biodiversity defined.
The production of a scientifically credible regionalisation of the entire Australian EEZ has been funded by Ocean Rescue 2000 and undertaken by a technical consortium of Commonwealth agencies: Australian Geological Survey Organisation, Australian Oceanographic Data Centre, Environmental Resources Information Network, and the CSIRO Divisions of Fisheries, Oceanography, and Wildlife and Ecology, with the expert input of various consultants. These regionalisations are to be used to facilitate plans for establishing a representative system of marine protected areas (MPAs) throughout the EEZ (Blake, 1995).
Next Chapter: 4. Aims and Scope of the Project