2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – Management Effectiveness – Marine plastics and debris

The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "Management Effectiveness of Marine plastics and debris". 
<strong><em>A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - Management Effectiveness – Marine plastics and debris"</em></strong>



DESCRIPTION OF THE APPROACH TO MANAGING THE PRESSURE
Marine debris, often called or associated with plastic pollution, was identified as a key threatening process to vertebrate marine life under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) due to the potential for ‘injury and fatality … caused by ingestion of, or entanglement in, harmful marine debris’.  The 2003 Threat Abatement Plan (TAP) identified sources and types of harmful marine debris, including land-based waste that leaks to the environment, as well as fishing gear lost from both recreational and commercial activities and vessel-based losses of anthropogenic materials that persist in the marine and coastal environment. Revised in 2018, the TAP incorporated information on knowledge and knowledge gaps, as well as identifying actions needed to abate the potential risks to vertebrate taxa from harmful marine debris. The TAP obliges the Commonwealth and its affiliated agencies “to respond to the impact of marine debris on vertebrate marine life, and identifies the research, management and other actions needed to reduce the impacts of marine debris on affected species”.   

More than two-thirds of the debris found on Australia’s coastline is comprised of plastic, and waste leakage to the environment typically occurs locally, hence, the role of waste management by local jurisdictions is critical to achieve a reduction in harm to Australia’s vertebrate coastal and marine fauna. There are a series of local, state-based and national activities and legislative levers that have been enacted to reduce waste losses to the environment. Some of these include container deposit legislation for beverages, plastic bag bans and levies, single use plastic bans (SUPs), drink refill stations, and separation of waste at the household level (e.g. Schuyler et al. 2018; Willis et al. 2017, 2019, 2021).

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
CSIRO, CUA, KAB data (national/subnational); at-sea surface trawl data (national/international).



2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• Approach •
Assessment grade: Partially effective
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Somewhat adequate
Confidence trend: Somewhat adequate
Comparability with 2016: Comparable
• Outputs •
Assessment grade: Partially effective
Assessment trend: Improving
Confidence grade: Limited
Confidence trend: Improving
Comparability with 2016: Somewhat comparable
• Outcomes •
Assessment grade: Partially effective
Assessment trend: Deteriorating
Confidence grade: Limited
Confidence trend: Improving
Comparability with 2016: Somewhat comparable



CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
In 2016, there were six sub-assessments for management effectiveness, for understanding (partially effective, improving), planning (ineffective, deteriorating), input (ineffective, deteriorating), processes (ineffective, deteriorating), outputs (ineffective, deteriorating), and outcomes (ineffective, deteriorating). For 2021 the number of sub-assessments was reduced to three – approach (encompassing understanding, planning, input and processes; partially effective, improving), outputs (partially effective, improving) and outcomes (partially effective, deteriorating). The improvements in assessed grade for approach (from ineffective and deteriorating for planning, input, processes to partially effective and improving overall), outputs (from ineffective and deteriorating to partially effective and improving) and outcomes (from ineffective and deteriorating to partially effective and deteriorating) reflects the strengthening of legislation and regulation relating to marine plastics and debris over the past 5 years, which, while substantial has not yet been sufficient to reverse the pressure of marine plastics and debris on Australia’s marine environment.

Tags: expert assessment, management effectiveness, marine debris, plastics
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network