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Paper short abstract:

In this paper we argue that Marine Protected Areas, which operate with the mandate of the citizenry, and within the legal framework of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999), mutually reinforce the paradox of abstinence from the world within which we necessarily exist.

Paper long abstract:

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are shared spaces where human use is regulated or excluded. A mandate from the community helps to justify the contribution of public funds to MPA development and enforcement. In Australia, as in other parts of the world, MPAs generally enjoy a high level of support. The tool is not without controversy among maritime scholars, however, who have questioned the claims made by MPA proponents about their efficacy across a range of measures as well as the economic and social impacts on local stakeholders. Like other environmental management tools, MPAs are enacted predominantly through the management of humans. What is more, the design and deployment of MPAs reflect the normative postulates—the world view, assumptions, culture—of humans, and particularly those shaped by a Western cultural tradition. Within this social framing ‘the environment’ is at its best, most natural, when it is free of humans. However, as is becoming more apparent via the melting of icecaps, rising of seas and pollution of atmospheres, humans need not be present in order to have an impact on distant natural environments. We consider these competing realities—the Western idealisation of wilderness, and the shared impact of humans—in our critique of MPAs in Australia. We argue that MPAs, which operate with the mandate of the citizenry, and within the legal framework of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (1999), mutually reinforce the paradox of fetishizing abstinence from the world within which we necessarily exist.