Zoning—lessons from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) is bigger than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined. Over the last 25 years a range of management ‘tools’, including zoning plans, permits, education, and more recently management plans, have been applied to regulate access and to control and mitigate impacts associated with human use of the GBRMP. A multiple-use zoning approach provides high levels of protection for specific areas whilst allowing reasonable uses, including certain fishing activities, to continue in other zones. Zoning has long been regarded as a cornerstone of Marine Park management, separating conflicting uses through application of the various zones and determining the appropriateness of various activities. Zoning in the GBRMP has evolved and changed considerably since the first zoning plan in 1981, along with other management approaches. This paper outlines what aspects of zoning have worked well, what has necessarily changed, and the zoning lessons learned from over two decades of ‘adaptive management’.