Australia's network of Commonwealth Marine Reserves

Consistent with the Australian Government's commitment to develop a National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), networks of Commonwealth Marine Reserves have been proclaimed for Commonwealth waters across the South-west, North-west, North, Coral Sea and Temperate East Marine Regions. These networks build on previous Marine Protected Area proclamations, including the South-east network declared in 2007.\\n\\nThis dataset is released under Creative Commons by Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Australia (CC BY-NC 3.0).\\n\\nIMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR MARINE USERS\\nTransitional arrangements apply to the South-west, North-west, North and Temperate East Networks and the Coral Sea reserve, until management plans come into effect. These arrangements involve NO CHANGES ON THE WATER for marine users. Note, there are no changes to management arrangements in the marine reserves that existed prior to the establishment of the new reserves, that is, the same restrictions on activities will continue to apply even where those reserves have been incorporated into new reserves. The South-east Network of Commonwealth Marine Reserves is managed under the South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network Management Plan 2013-23, in place from 1 July 2013. More information is available at www.environment.gov.au/marinereserves \\n\\nThis data contains spatial and contextual information about Commonwealth Marine Reserves under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth governments Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, which are managed by the Australian Government Department of the Environment. It does not include data on MPA's in other Australian jurisdictions (e.g. the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, State/Territory parks), or Terrestrial Protected Areas with marine components (eg Pulu Keeling National Park).