The Western Australian government has released a proposal for two new marine parks which will protect a pristine stretch of Australia’s north-west coast. However, environmental groups say the decision to allow prawn trawling and fishing within the marine parks could affect their conservation value.
The draft management plan, released on Friday, includes long-awaited protection for Horizontal Falls, a tidal lagoon encircled by cliffs and described by David Attenborough as “one of the greatest natural wonders of the world” for the rapids that form at the two narrow entries to the lagoon as the tide comes rushing in and out each day.
Horizontal Falls, or Garaanngaddim, is in Dambimangari country, about 2,500km north of Perth or 1,700km west of Darwin. The closest town is Derby, 100km away. It is a three-day boat trip from Broome and can’t be reached by road – the only path, the four-wheel-drive Munja track, only reaches to the beginning of Walcott Inlet, about 50km inland.
The Horizontal Falls/Garaanngaddim marine park would cover 353,000 square kilometres from Talbot Bay to Walcott Inlet and Glenelg River, and abut the existing Camden Sound or Lalang-Garram marine park. The second proposed marine park, North Lalang-Garram, will cover an additional 110,000 square kilometres next to Prince Regent National Park.
The are covered by the proposed parks is of great cultural significance to the Dambimangari and would be jointly managed by traditional owners and the Department of Parks and Wildlife.
The environment minister, Albert Jacob, said it was part of the plan for the Great Kimberley Marine Park, a continuous 3m square kilometres marine park along the jagged coastline from Talbot Bay to the border with the Northern Territory.
The area is home to hundreds of species, around 60% of which are endemic. It has the world’s highest recorded diversity of sea snakes, housing a third of all known species, and also boasts four of the seven known species of sawfish, which look like a stingray with a trimmer attachment.
It is also home to two species of dolphin found only in Australia – the snubfin dolphin and the Australian humpback dolphin – as well as six species of sea turtle, dugongs, 500 breeding pairs of crested terns and 2000 breeding pairs of brown boobies, which reside on Booby Island.
Camden Sound is the breeding ground for the largest colony of humpback whales in the world.
Tim Nicol, from Pew Charitable Trusts, said the area ranked alongside Antarctica and the Arctic as one of the world’s most pristine marine environments. Most of the land near the proposed marine parks – about 29,700 square kilometres – is exclusively held by the Dambimangari under native title law, meaning than anyone seeking to visit has to get permission first. There are a number of mining leases in the iron and copper-rich cliffs, some of which overlay the proposed parks, but none are active. An bid to conduct exploratory drills at Talbot Bay was shut down by the state government in 2012.
But the plan would allow for commercial fishing in some areas of the park to continue. Outside of eight sanctuary areas, which make up some 24% of the total area of the proposed park, 10 fisheries will continue to operate, including prawn trawling and the use of gill nets, a net which is strung across tidal river mouths to catch fish by the gill.
Both methods produced a lot of bycatch. Nicol told Guardian Australia that gillnetting in the area had snagged snub-fin dolphins, a species endemic to northern Australia, as well as crocodiles, dugongs and the endangered sawfish.
“If you are looking at how to protect one of the most pristine areas of the world, you probably don’t want to allow [commercial] fishing there,” he said.
Jenita Enevoldsen, WA state director of the Wilderness Society, said the group’s main concern was gillnet fishing.
“Thousands of non-target species like crocodiles are caught in gillnet loops, which can be left for days to slowly starve and drown,” she said. “We are advocating for a gillnet ban across these proposed parks and the Great Kimberley Marine Park, to ensure world-class protection.”
Enevoldsen said she would like to see the area covered by sanctuary zones increased to between 30% and 50%, the international standard for marine parks.
The draft management plan is open for public comment until 22 January 2016.
• This article was amended on 19 October 2015 to make clear that Tim Nicol was referring to commercial fishing
