Lynnath Beckley

Many people are interested in fishes, but often it can be difficult to access reliable information on the biology, status and management of a particular fish species. Although there is a long history of world class fisheries research and management in Australia, the full details are generally only available in a fragmented manner in various scientific journals, books and reports. In some cases, these sources of information can be difficult to find and, even for fisheries researchers and managers, who usually have access to scientific journals, certain types of information such as unpublished reports or student theses, can be hard to acquire. The first objective in developing this guide was thus to collate a range of important details relating to current biological understanding, stock status and management for 30 of Western Australia’s most important and/or well known, temperate marine fish species. The second objective was to provide a comprehensive list of publications relevant to each species, to enable easier access to more detailed information on those species.

This report presents the results of a survey of visitors to three campgrounds adjacent to the southern part of Ningaloo Marine Park, Western Australia. The survey focused on measuring place attachment as well as visitor perceptions of possible management actions and their stated intentions to undertake a range of pro-environmental behaviours. Questions pertaining to visit and visitor characteristics were included and are also reported here.

The information provided by the remote sensing data was used to detect and map the distribution of seabed habitats such as sand, limestone pavement, rubble, macroalgae, hard and soft coral as well as different coral growth forms, and a classification was allocated. The classifications were then checked against information collected from previous biodiversity studies that included habitat information from nearly 3,500 points in the Ningaloo lagoon. Information about the depth contours were also obtained from the data and used to model how depth changes throughout the lagoon and to understand the distribution of seabed habitat cover. In coastal areas the aim was to map the network of roads and tracks, describe the vegetation cover and map areas which have low or no vegetative cover. This work has shown that it is possible to map coral reef habitats over large areas using remote sensing and this technique is well suited for semi-automated mapping tasks.

This project has provided a robust benchmark on the extent of human use of Ningaloo Marine Park during 2007. The data have high spatial and temporal resolution and are in a geo-referenced format which has allowed both assessment of spatio-temporal patterns as well as detailed understanding of recreational activities conducted in various areas of the park. The use of Ningaloo Marine Park is markedly seasonal with a clear increase in the number of users, and expansion of their spatial extent to cover most of the park, during the period April to October. In the off-season (November to March), people conducting activities in the park are fewer and largely concentrated in Coral Bay and around North West Cape. A wide range of extractive activities, such as recreational fishing, and non-extractive activities including snorkelling, surfing, sailing sports, relaxing on the beach and walking are conducted in the park. The demographic characteristics of people engaged in activities differed significantly between various areas and were related to road/track access, accommodation opportunities and tenure of the land adjacent to the park. Travel network analysis on how coastal roads, tracks and boat launching areas are utilised highlighted node-based patterns of use as well as rapid decay in use with distance from access points. The multivariate multiple regression model of environmental variables plus auto-correlative components explained about 54 % of the observed variation in recreational use with the major explanatory variables being sealed roads accessible by tourist buses and camping opportunities adjacent to the park. The results of the project provide a basis for enhanced management, readily measurable indicators for monitoring and are well-suited to systematic conservation planning for the next iteration of the Ningaloo Marine Park Management Plan.

This project forms part of the Wealth from Oceans Flagship Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster. The main objectives are (1) to determine the spatial and temporal distribution of recreational activities (e.g., fishing, diving, snorkelling, kayaking, surfing etc) within the reef lagoon system at Ningaloo Marine Park (NMP) and (2) to relate distribution patterns to factors such as biodiversity, physical conditions, park zoning, access roads and accommodation nodes.