Victoria’s seascapes generally have intact ecological processes operating in the two environments of the bays - estuaries and the open coast. The larger embayments and inlets are spread throughout central and eastern Victoria. For example, Port Phillip Bay covers 1950 square kilometres and has 260 kilometres of coastline and Western Port Bay covers 680 square kilometres and contains several large islands. The Victorian open coast extends out to 5.5 kilometres from the shore line and covers about 7000 square kilometres of the coast. Unlike the landscape, effectively all of Victoria’s seascape is publicly owned.

The Victorian coast offers a rich diversity of flora and fauna and terrestrial and marine habitats along a compact and easily accessible coastline. The sustainability of these seascapes is due to their largely intact and functional natural processes. The knowledge base for the biodiversity of the marine environment has not been as well developed as that for the terrestrial environment, however new studies are beginning to redress this balance. Following four years of scientific investigation, the Port Phillip Bay Environmental Study (CSIRO, 1996) emphasised the potential impact of enhanced nutrient input and introduced marine organisms on ecosystem health and function. The study also highlighted the link between human activities in the catchment and the integrity of our estuaries and the ecosystems they contain.

Over the past two decades or so we are coming to realise the implications of using our seascapes as transport routes and how vulnerable they are to the use of their natural resources (fish, petroleum etc.) and to human activities on the adjacent land. Sustainable management of this precious resource is a key priority if the values that are present now are to be retained for the future. Conserving Victoria’s seascape biodiversity also requires integrating management of the hinterland and the open ocean to ensure that conservation of ecosystem function, habitats, and the harvesting of biological resources is sustainable.

The key management approaches in the largely natural seascapes are:

• to ensure the natural ecological processes are maintained, with priority given to catchment activities resulting in better control of nutrient inputs, and, to minimising the risk of exotic marine organisms in the Victorian seacape;
• to ensure that uses of seascapes are ecologically sustainable through the establishment of effective management regimes;
• to establish a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system of marine parks.

A current initiative that will help these approaches, the Victorian Coastal Strategy (1997), supports sustainable use of the natural resources and seeks to ensure the protection of significant environmental features. This overarching strategy sets out a framework for integrated planning for the coast and marine environments that will encourage the inclusion of biodiversity information in all stages of the planning process. The strategy further defines principles to guide future decision making and identifies priorities for improving management processes that threaten biodiversity along the coast.

Other strategic initiatives which will provide directions for improving the management of threatening processes are the State Environmental Protection Policies (SEPP) for Port Phillip Bay and Westernport, and the Parliament’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee Inquiry into Ballast Water and Hull Fouling in Victoria.

The development of fisheries management plans based on ecologically sustainable development principles will improve biodiversity outcomes. These plans and policies all emphasise the need to recognise the links between catchment activities and the quality of coastal waters, and the vulnerability of the ecological and economic assets to exotic organisms.

A national initiative that will add to these approaches is the National Oceans Policy, due for release in mid 1998. The Victorian Government is working with other States, Territories and the Commonwealth to finalise a framework for the integrated planning and management of Australia’s oceans. Management will be a shared responsibility between the relevant States and the Commonwealth, based on the jurisdiction responsiblities outlined in the Offshore Constitutional Settlement.

Currently, about 5.4 per cent of Victoria’ seascapes are in some form of protected area. On the open coast these are at Cape Patterson and Wilsons Promontory, and within the bays at the heads to Port Phillip and at Point Cook and at Shallow Inlet and Corner Inlet. Extensive areas of the larger bays and estuaries are also listed under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, also known as the Ramsar Convention.

The Environment Conservation Council is to complete a marine and coastal investigation by 30 June 1998. The Council will investigate and make recommendations on the protection of significant environmental values and the sustainable use of the marine, coastal and estuarine areas excluding the Gippsland Lakes. This includes establishing a preferred approach and priorities for the progressive establishment of a representative system of marine parks in Victoria. Recent investigations and inventories into the biological assets of our marine environments will help this investigation.

Key Directions

• Integrate planning for the marine environment and adjacent areas.
• Improve management of processes that threaten biodiversity, particularly land and ship sourced pollution, and invasion of exotic organisms.
• Establish a representative system of marine parks.
• Increase partnership arrangements between community, industry and government to address issues.
• Develop an environmental management plan for Port Phillip Bay.
• Increase our knowledge of the marine biodiversity.