Monitoring the effects of rezoning the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

As a result of the Representative Areas Program (RAP), a major rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park occurred in July 2004. The objective of rezoning the GBR Marine Park was to conserve biodiversity by ensuring that at least 20% of each of a full range of bioregions within the Marine Park was protected.To assess the effects of the new zoning plan, pairs of mid-shelf and outer shelf reefs were identified that had both been open to fishing prior to 2004, but one reef in each pair had been rezoned as a "no-take" area in 2004, while the other reef remained open to fishing. Reefs in each pair were located close to each other, were in the same Representative Areas Program bioregion and had similar geomorphology of the NE reef face.Six pairs of mid-shelf or outer shelf reefs with the appropriate zoning history were selected in each of four localities close to centres of population: Cairns-Innisfail, Townsville, Mackay and the Swain Reefs, and four pairs of reefs were selected in the Capricorn-Bunker Group.This research was undertaken to monitor the effects of rezoning of the GBRMP, which entailed a large increase in the "no-take" areas within the Marine Park.These reefs are surveyed using the same survey procedures as those used for the AIMS Long-term Monitoring Project. The survey methods are1. Broadscale surveys of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) and coral cover2. SCUBA searches on fixed transects looking for agents of coral mortality: Adult and juvenile COTS, Drupella spp. and coral disease3. Video or still images of benthic organisms on fixed transects4. Visual surveys of fish on fixed transectsThis research was supported by the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility which was represented and managed in North Queensland by the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Ltd