Outlook and impacts

Outlook

As part of the Regular Process for Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including Socioeconomic Aspects, the United Nations (UN) published the first World Ocean Assessment in 2016, and the second World Ocean Assessment in 2021 (UN 2016, UN 2021). A key message from these assessments is that, although understanding of the oceans and management frameworks have improved, key pressures continue to degrade the marine environment. This puts at risk the benefits that humans derive from the oceans.

The continued degradation is largely due to a failure to achieve integrated management of human uses of the marine environment. The assessments concluded that improved management of human uses is needed to address and mitigate pressures, and that this will require improved coordination and cooperation within and across jurisdictions. It will also require innovations in marine technology, improved planning and management frameworks, integration of marine observation systems, and improved access to and exchange of ocean knowledge.

The key messages for Australia from this chapter closely mirror these global messages from the World Ocean Assessments.

In Australia, we are fortunate in having a diverse, productive and beautiful marine estate; our management systems for the marine environment are among the best in the world; and most of our marine habitats and species are currently in relatively good condition overall nationally. Nevertheless, parts of our marine environment are seeing the effects of climate change and associated extreme events (e.g. marine heatwaves), combined with pressures arising from growing human populations (especially pollution) and our rapidly developing blue economy, and the cumulative effects of these pressures. These pressures will only intensify as activities and industries that have predominantly been restricted to terrestrial and coastal environments (e.g. aquaculture, energy generation) proliferate offshore, creating new challenges for sustainability and biosecurity. Without decisive action, we are likely to see substantial continued and increasingly widespread degradation of our marine environment, which will impact our marine industries, health and wellbeing.

The Australian Prime Minister, as a member of the 14-nation High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel), has committed to sustainably managing 100% of the ocean area under national jurisdiction, guided by a sustainable ocean plan, by 2025. This sustainable plan is to ‘be in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, build on integrated ocean management and ecosystem knowledge, address pressures from all land and sea-based sources, and take account of the predicted impacts of climate change’ (Ocean Panel 2020).

The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration began in 2021. Also in 2021, Future Earth Australia’s Oceans and Coasts Strategy was published (Future Earth Australia 2021), along with the National Marine Science Committee (NMSC) mid-term report on the National Marine Science Plan (NMSC 2021b) (see case study: Australia’s National Marine Science Plan within the context of international initiatives).

The commitments made by the Ocean Panel, along with the activities identified in the NMSC midway point report and Future Earth Australia strategy, are aspirations that, if met, will transition us towards a sustainable future for Australia’s marine environment.

Achieving Australia’s commitments to these international initiatives and national aspirations will require that gaps are addressed in the coordination of many components of marine planning and management, including marine spatial planning frameworks, integrated coastal and marine management (including the management of land-based pressures on marine environments), and climate change mitigation and adaptation across multiple scales – from local, state and territory to national and international (Winther et al. 2020b, Melbourne-Thomas et al. 2021, Trebilco et al. 2021).

This is an essential task, and Australia can use lessons learned from other parts of the world that are progressing with such integrated approaches (e.g. van Hoof et al. 2012). Much of what will be needed has been mapped out – for example, see the Future Seas website for Australian-led research on how to chart a course to sustainable oceans globally in 2030.

A key component of this work will be building and strengthening partnerships for knowledge sharing in caring for Country with Indigenous land and sea managers. We are beginning to challenge the existing norms around governance and management; more will be needed so that our nation pushes the boundaries of innovation. Traditional Owners are trying to build the foundational platform for their views and aspirations to be included in the full delivery agenda, involving strategic directions and decision-making, policy development, implementation planning and resourcing. We need to build performance and capability to better deliver the kind of leadership, guidance and support needed to have a healthy and sustainable environment:

We need to encourage and tell the Australian public that healing the Country is a responsibility for all of us. We all have a part to play. We all live in this country together, so we all need to contribute to help heal it. (Participant, Traditional Owner yarning circle)

Impacts

Impacts on the environment and ecosystems

Climate change is resulting in many changes to the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the oceans around Australia and globally, with impacts that are felt throughout marine ecosystems (Babcock et al. 2019, Smale et al. 2019, Gervais et al. 2021). Australia’s – and the world’s – continually growing demand for food and other resources from the marine environment and resultant rapid development of our blue economy mean that our seascapes are becoming increasingly crowded and noisy. These changes, in combination with the impacts of pollution (including plastics, marine debris, petrochemicals, excess nutrients, sediments and pesticides), degrade marine ecosystems and undermine their ability to provide supporting, provisioning and regulating services (e.g. Costanza et al. (2014), Beaumont et al. (2019), Smale et al. (2019)).

Avoiding these negative impacts requires integrative and adaptive management, including proactive climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies (Trebilco et al. 2021).

Impacts on human health and wellbeing

The oceans are the largest component in Earth’s system that stabilises climate and supports life on Earth and human wellbeing (High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2017). The supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005) provided by the oceans all contribute directly or indirectly to human wellbeing (Abunge et al. 2013, Jordan et al. 2016, Villasante et al. 2016, Gollan et al. 2019). It is widely recognised that increasing pressures on the world’s oceans and resources are threatening sustainability and human wellbeing worldwide (Alexander et al. 2018, Ryabinin et al. 2019, Fleming et al. 2021).

By considering links between key components of human wellbeing (see the Human society and wellbeing section in the Overview chapter) and the state of the environment outcomes that we assess in this chapter, we can consider overall implications of the current state of the Australian marine environment for human wellbeing (Table 1).

The current impact of Australia’s marine environment on human wellbeing is generally positive overall. Implications for wellbeing were found to be positive for 6 outcomes, negative for 4 outcomes and very negative for 1 outcome (Table 1). However, this approach does not capture interactions and feedbacks. Two of the negative outcomes – ‘Pressures on the marine environment from climate change and associated extremes are reduced’ and ‘Pressures on the environment associated with population growth are reduced’ – are likely to underpin all other outcomes to some extent in the long term. Therefore, implications for human wellbeing are likely to ultimately be negative in the mid-term, unless pressures associated with climate change and the growing human population (and resulting cumulative effects) can be addressed.