Despite the importance of healthy oceans to economic, environmental and human wellbeing, Tasmania’s current approach to marine management is out of date and incomplete. One consequence of this is an absence of assessment and reporting. Data that does exist, however, shows things are growing worse. Human demands and climate change are impacting ocean resilience.
The Australia Institute has prepared It’s TIME to instigate discussion about improving Tasmania’s marine estate management. It responds to the current, once-in-a-generation review of Tasmania’s main marine law, the Living Marine Resources Management Act 1995.
Our key recommendation is the establishment of a Marine Estate Authority, linked into existing government architecture and tasked with orchestrating a whole-of-government approach to management.
We recommend umbrella legislation that establishes a unified framework to link and integrate planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and consideration of cumulative impacts and trade-offs.
Development of Australia’s Sustainable Ocean Plan provides an opportunity for Tasmania to contribute to the new international oceans era, while simultaneously addressing long overdue local reforms. Our paper proposes a well-recognised approach that can be applied locally to reverse current trajectories. A Tasmanian Integrated Marine Estate Act — because it’s TIME!