Marine park

A marine park is a designated park consisting of an area of sea (or lake) set aside to achieve ecological sustainability, promote marine awareness and understanding, enable marine recreational activities, and provide benefits for Indigenous peoples and coastal communities. Most marine parks are managed by national governments, and organized like 'watery' national parks, whereas marine protected areas and marine reserves are often managed by a subnational entity or non-governmental organization, such as a conservation authority.
The largest marine park used to be the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia, at 350,000 km² until 2010, when the United Kingdom announced the opening of the Chagos Marine Park or Chagos Archipelago.
Although for many uses it is sufficient to designate the boundaries of the marine park and to inform commercial fishing boats and other maritime enterprises, some parks have gone to additional effort to make their wonders accessible to visitors. These can range from glass-bottomed boats and small submarines, to windowed undersea tubes.
In New Zealand a marine reserve is an area which has a higher degree of legal protection than marine parks for conservation purposes.
In New South Wales, there are planned marine parks which will stretch along the coastline of the entire state.
France and its territories are home to nine marine parks, known as parc naturel marin [fr].
Nearly all existing marine reserves have been set close to shore, mostly in territorial waters. A main reason for this lies in the fragmented nature of maritime governance in international waters, the poor enforcement of existing regulations in the High seas, plus the difficult co-management that would be required of countries often in conflict. How to circumvent such obstacles? In 2011, based on unique biological, geological and oceanographic features, the Mediterranean Science Commission proposed the creation of eight large international, coast-to coast "Marine Peace Parks" in the Mediterranean Sea where no coastal point is farther than 200 nautical miles from waters under another jurisdiction. The trans-frontier structure of such 'Peace' Parks puts this problem aside, encouraging the local Governments involved to join forces in the pursuit of a cause higher than their national interest without prejudice to current national claims .
Greenpeace is campaigning for the "doughnut holes" of the western pacific to be declared as marine reserves. They are also campaigning for 40 percent of the world’s oceans to be protected as marine reserves.
The Australian Government manages an estate of marine protected areas (MPA) that are Commonwealth reserves under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
As of December 2013, the following marine parks have been declared under the Marine Parks Act 2007 (SA) :
The state of Victoria has protected approximately 5.3% of coastal waters. In June 2002, legislation was passed to establish 13 Marine National Parks and 11 Marine Sanctuaries. Victoria is the first jurisdiction in the world to create an entire system of highly protected Marine National Parks at the same time. Additional areas are listed as Marine Parks or Marine Reserves, which provides a lower level of protection and allows activities such as commercial and recreational fishing.
The marine national parks are:
Kimberley region:
Gascoyne region: