“I welcome and look forward to receiving full and considered contributions to these public consultations from marine science experts and other key stakeholders,” Plibersek said.

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Plibersek said the government had committed to carry out a statutory review process of Australia’s national marine parks networks, with any changes based on science and stakeholder consultation. “I also recognise the role that sustainable marine industries can play in park management,” she said.

The scientists say these “parks only on paper” have no detectable ecological difference from nearby fished areas and deceive the public by suggesting a positive environmental outcome but achieving little or nothing for conservation. Only nine per cent of Commonwealth waters and nine per cent of state waters are currently protected in no-fishing zones, and these values have declined from 2016 to 2020.

Most other countries use the internationally recognised International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) definitions of marine protected areas, which explicitly exclude industrial fishing.

“The system has been tweaked to the point where the areas where conservation is most needed, have nothing in place,” says letter co-signatory Professor Graham Edgar, from the University of Tasmania. “The marine park network, although it’s large, it’s been designed in a way that protects places that hold the least value for conservation.”

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The many pressures on Australia’s coastal environment appear to be worsening, and invasive species are an ongoing and pervasive threat to coastal ecosystems, although nutrient pollution appears to be lessening in response to proper management, the State of the Environment report found.

The group of scientists is calling on Plibersek to implement a marine park network that would fully protect 30 per cent of Australia’s jurisdiction, including at least 10 per cent of ecosystem types in each bioregion around Australia.

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