Oct 9, 2026 · 19 min · 9 segments
How big is the Great Barrier Reef, where does it start, and how can you experience it? In this episode of Reef in Focus, host Lincoln Bertoli joins Reef Authority Chief Scientist Dr Roger Beeden…
Roger BeedenGuest
Lincoln BertoliHost
For those of us that are lucky enough, I guess, to work and live along the Great Barrier Reef, chances are we've all enjoyed going snorkelling, diving, fishing, swimming, all that sort of thing.
But a multiple use marine park actually delves a lot deeper than, I guess, the wreck activities that we know and love.
Can you explain that in a bit more detail? What is a multiple use marine park?
Well, so people like to do things out on coral reef systems around the world, lots of different types of things.
Some people like to enjoy them to just go and take photographs of them or go and recreate in those areas.
And sometimes there's commercial businesses, whether it's tourism, whether it's like coastal developments and the like that actually might be.
It's obviously agriculture and around these areas as well, not in the marine park, but adjacent to it.
And so the whole point of a multiple use marine park is that It's there for everybody.
I mean, we're very fortunate that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has been in place for just over 50 years now.
And for the last more than 20 years now, we've had a revised zoning plan that covers that entire area and it has different levels of protection.
So in some places you can go commercial fishing, in some places you can't, in some places you can only go recreationally fishing, you can use certain gear types and the like.
And then we have things like a smaller number of pink zones where you're not actually even allowed to go into those areas without special permission.
So the point of this is actually to have a network of protection because of that connectedness, which is really important for protecting biodiversity, but also to allow for the fact that different people want to do different things in those.
In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, all uses need to be sustainable to actually sustain this system for the long term.
For those of us that are lucky enough, I guess, to work and live along the Great Barrier Reef, chances are we've all enjoyed going snorkelling, diving, fishing, swimming, all that sort of thing.
But a multiple use marine park actually delves a lot deeper than, I guess, the wreck activities that we know and love.
Can you explain that in a bit more detail? What is a multiple use marine park?
Well, so people like to do things out on coral reef systems around the world, lots of different types of things.
Some people like to enjoy them to just go and take photographs of them or go and recreate in those areas.
And sometimes there's commercial businesses, whether it's tourism, whether it's like coastal developments and the like that actually might be.
It's obviously agriculture and around these areas as well, not in the marine park, but adjacent to it.
And so the whole point of a multiple use marine park is that It's there for everybody.
I mean, we're very fortunate that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has been in place for just over 50 years now.
And for the last more than 20 years now, we've had a revised zoning plan that covers that entire area and it has different levels of protection.
So in some places you can go commercial fishing, in some places you can't, in some places you can only go recreationally fishing, you can use certain gear types and the like.
And then we have things like a smaller number of pink zones where you're not actually even allowed to go into those areas without special permission.
So the point of this is actually to have a network of protection because of that connectedness, which is really important for protecting biodiversity, but also to allow for the fact that different people want to do different things in those.
In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, all uses need to be sustainable to actually sustain this system for the long term.
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