Лорд-Хау аралдарының теңіз паркі: Биологиялық әртүрлілікті қорғау және мұражай мәні

Lord Howe Island Marine Park is the site of Australia's and the world's most southern coral reef ecosystem. The island is 10 km in length, 2 km wide and consists of a large lagoonal reef system along its leeward side, with 28 small islets along its coast.

The marine park was declared on 26 February 1999 under the Marine Parks Act 1997, with a zoning plan commencing on 1 December 2004 to protect the important natural and cultural values of the park while providing a range of sustainable uses. The marine park status helps protect marine biodiversity from fishing pressure and population pressure. A range of scientific, social, cultural and economic information was collated to design the zoning plan. In June 2002, a draft zoning plan document was established outlining a number of options for zoning, incorporating the submissions gained through the public comment period, advice taken from the Lord Howe Island Marine Park Advisory Committee and a review of relevant information. This zoning scheme partitioned the coastal waters of Lord Howe Island to permit different human uses, in order to minimise the threat to marine conservation values. Lord Howe Island's climate is moderated by oceanic air currents and mild sea temperatures. Lord Howe Island is situated at the southernmost limit of coral reef formation, receiving both tropical and temperate open ocean carbon environments. Slowly, over time Lord Howe Island is moving into reef forming seas due to the northward migration of Australia's tectonic plate, which is moving 5–6 cm north per year. A white sedimentary rock known as calcarenite is locally important within the marine park as it makes up the central and northern regions of the island to below sea level in several places. The beach and shallow water calcarenites indicate a sea level around 2–3 m above the present level during the last interglacial period (130,000 70,000 years ago, Pleistocene). Little evidence of reefs during this time can be seen as they may have occupied locations similar to those of modern reefs or were largely destroyed following emergence once the sea level fell. The fringing reef on the windward western coastline of Lord Howe Island absorbs wave energy and acts as a breakwater preventing storm surges from eroding the low lying central region of the island. The sheltered lagoon contains a number of different reef habitats, dominated by sand, lagoonal corals, gravel sheets, algal flats and patch reefs.

The high conservation significance of Lord Howe Island and its waters is recognised by its inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982. Conservation values relating to the marine park include the unique combination of tropical and temperature reef taxa, both flora and fauna.

The marine life comprise both subtropical and temperate species due to its location and influence of the southerly flowing East Australian Current (EAC). As a consequence, the waters surrounding Lord Howe Island show rich and unique biodiversity. An extensive barrier coral reef protects a broad sheltered lagoon and sandy beach on the western side of the island, while fringing reef occurs immediately offshore of the beaches on the eastern side. The Lord Howe Island Group supports a diverse inshore fish fauna with greater than 400 species recorded. 10% of the marine inshore fish species are known to be endemic, meaning they are only found at Lord Howe Island, while 8% of the 110 species of echinoderms are also endemic. A wide variety of seabirds roost and nest on the island but feed on schools of fish and squid. This diversity reflects the mixing of tropical species with temperate species and the range of marine environments present.

It is becoming widely known that the world's marine biodiversity is under threat due to overexploitation and degrading human activities, such as pollution rapidly changing species habitat and leading to species loss. Two species of plants, nine terrestrial birds, one bat and four invertebrate species have become locally extinct. Isolated islands are under a disproportionate level of threat due to their small range and high level of endemic taxa. Even small human induced disturbances can lead to species extinction. Key threatening processes relevant to the Lord Howe Island Marine Park include anthropogenic climate change, and entanglement in or ingestion of anthropogenic debris in marine environments. Anthropogenic climate change is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation (TSC) Act 1995 while loss of climatic habitat caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. Climate change is likely to alter sea surface temperatures which can have severe consequences for seabird breeding. There has been significant growth in people pressure over time. Visitor numbers have increased significantly as has the amount of available accommodation options. From 1988 to 2000 the Lord Howe Island population grew by 13%, the number of dwellings increased by 55% and the number of visitors increased by nearly 100%.

Lord Howe Island has 37 km of shoreline or littoral zone, with only eight kilometres readily accessible. This eight kilometres has been most heavily impacted as most of the forest has been cleared to the edge of the beach, removing the buffer to strong prevalent winds, impacting the forest behind.

The lagoon is six kilometres long and 1.5 km wide and contains the largest of Lord Howe Island's coral reef system, assessed as having World Heritage values. The main identified threats to the marine environment are the impact of water quality welling up in the lagoon from groundwater, the potential changes of turbidity affecting the clarity of water in the lagoon, the impact from anchor damage (outside as well as inside the lagoon), overfishing particularly of the slower growing fish species which inhabit the drop off, and dramatic water temperature changes causing coral bleaching and death of other marine species.

To abate human influence on marine biodiversity worldwide, marine parks are becoming widely advocated as a tool for conserving biodiversity and managing overfishing. Elsewhere, protected areas such as marine reserves have been attributed to increased species densities, biodiversity, species growth, biomass, and reproductive output. It is a similar case for the Lord Howe Island Marine Park

Species habitat is typically used as the major component of designing marine parks: if a number of habitat classes are protected, so are the species within them, hence effectively protecting and hopefully in turn increasing marine biodiversity. This is the goal of the marine park at Lord Howe Island. A study conducted in 2010, six years after the implementation of zoning showed the mean number of fish species, density and biomass of fishes is typically higher in sanctuary zones than in habitat protection zones where fishing is allowed. The mean cover of hard corals was also higher in sanctuary zones. Sanctuary zones have been found successful in protecting key species and biomass, though longer term datasets and further research into increasing subtidal macro algal communities in sanctuary zones is required. A review of other research following the implementation of the Marine Park has outlined a number of successes and negative outcomes. This research found the Galapagos shark, Carcharhinus galapagensis increased in number in sanctuary zones, while there was an increase in abundance of the endemic double header wrasse, Coris bulbifrons, bluefish, Girella cyanea and the spotted sawtail, Prionurus maculates, in sanctuary zones. Negative outcomes have shown populations of the habitat modifying urchin, Centrostaphanus rodgersii, increased threefold between 2006 2010 and densities of the second most abundant urchin, Heliocidaris tuberculata, has doubled. If sea urchins become overpopulated, they can have major impacts on reef systems through overgrazing of important algae. Other negatives include a large and significant decline in population of bluefish within habitat protection zones. While there will continue to be both success and failures following the implementation of the marine park, the successes will continue to outweigh the failures until such time that equilibrium within the marine ecosystem is reached, this can take up to 20 years from the date of implementation.