An Oceans Policy, if it is to provide a comprehensive framework for the sustainable management of marine resources, must foreshadow mechanisms that address the entire range of issues and embed them in the institutional framework of local government, State and Commonwealth Law and International Conventions on the Oceans. This report seeks to explore and identify opportunities to use different incentive mechanisms to improve the health of Australia's oceans and the opportunities that they offer for the people who use and value them. While the focus of this report is on oceans, it is essential to realise that many of the threats to marine biodiversity and marine productivity arise from land-based activities. Land-based activities, estuaries, coastal zone and marine environment are all intrinsically linked to each other. Figure1 develops a conceptual framework of the biophysical relationships relevant to oceans management and depicts the general geographical and institutional settings.
Arrows represent impact relationships and indicate their directions.
It should be borne in mind that Figure1, in the interests of clarity, simplifies a highly complex system and abstracts the relationships. Complex biological systems such as oceans may not show immediate and linear responses to use and management activities but are characterised by threshold behaviour as well as time lags and spatial distance between cause and effect. Many impacts are indirect and some are cumulative. Heavy metals are released in industrial production processes and bacteria and other biological carriers come from human and animal waste. The population increase along Australia's shorelines and corresponding industrial development have seen a rapid increase of sewage outflow into rivers, estuaries and oceans.