This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub project "Synthesis of environmental values to support the review of Australian Marine Park management plans". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

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Parks Australia (Australian Government) manage 60 Australian Marine Parks (AMPs) around the country, covering an area of 3.8 million square kilometres, or 43% of all Australian waters. The approach to managing AMPs is set out in eight Management Plans, one for each of the five marine park networks (North, North-west, South-west, South-east and Temperate East) and one each for the Coral Sea Marine Park, Christmas Island Marine Park and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park. A statutory review of Management Plans for the North, North-west, South-west, Temperate-East networks and the Coral Sea Marine Park is scheduled for 2028. This review requires accessible, synthesised evidence on science outputs, natural values, socio-economic values and pressures across parks and networks.

This project supports the 2028 statutory review by synthesising relevant NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub, NESP Marine and Coastal Hub, and Parks Australia-contracted work from 2017 onwards. These reports bring together science outputs, natural values, pressures and socio-economic information from 2017 onwards, aggregated where possible to Park and Network scales.

The project reviewed the data summaries, workflows and reporting tools used to prepare the synthesis reports, and identified opportunities to better integrate this infrastructure. These recommendations support future AMP management effectiveness reporting, statutory review processes, and national environmental assessment and impact reporting.

Outputs

• Catalogue of available data for each reviewed Network (North, North-west, South-west, Temperate East) and the Coral Sea AMP [data inventory]

• Synthesis report [written] for each region that will include:

- a summary of science activity and outputs since 2017

- summaries of the state and trend of Natural Values and Pressures since 2017, aggregated by Ecosystem Component, Ecosystem Depth Zone, AMP, and AMP Zone type (where possible)

• Final technical report (including recommendations to support AMP management and reporting) [written]