Cullen-Knox, C., Haward, M., Jabour, J., Ogier, E., & Tracey, S. R. (2017). The social licence to operate and its role in marine governance: Insights from Australia.Marine Policy, 79, 70-77. Web.
The authors of this article are professors and doctors at the University of Tasmania who specialize in the marine environment, environmental governance, and political science. They examine the role of social license to operate (SLO) in the governmental protection of the marine environment in Australia. The concept of SLO refers to what the expectations imposed by the society on activities of commercial enterprises. This study is based on qualitative primary sources, including interviews, official statements, media and policy texts. In addition to this, the authors conducted a case study analysis of the fishing boat FV Margiris, Western Australian Shark Mitigation Program, and whaling of Japanese enterprises in the Southern Ocean.
The main finding is that the role of contemporary SLO on political decision-makers is gradually increasing. Therefore, in the case of Australia, SLO affects policies implemented by national marine governance and assists in protecting marine diversity. This scholarly article is valuable for the future essay because it shows how the society could influence the government and convince it to care for local marine biodiversity. It supports the idea of marine diversity preservation through the presence of community in the marine governance.
Evans, K., Bax, N., & Smith, D. C. (2017). Australia state of the environment 2016: Marine environment, independent report to the Australian Government Minister for the Environment and Energy. Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy.
The authors of this report are experts in environmental studies. The primary purpose of their text is to discuss the topic of the Australian marine environment. For this reason, the report includes chapters on the effect of divers on marine diversity, pressures affecting it, and trends of marine biodiversity. The authors also analyze the effectiveness of marine management in Australia and the resilience of local marine systems. The main idea of this text is that the constantly increasing exploitation of ocean resources provoke environmental change and pose significant danger to the oceans washing the shores of Australia. At the same time, the authors emphasize that the national and states governments constantly introduce new measures that could help to protect marine biodiversity.
This report is relevant to the essay on the problems with Australian biodiversity because it clearly outlines the existing challenges. It also describes what the government has already done to prevent the loss of marine environment diversity. The central weak point of this paper is that it was published almost four years ago and describes the state of affairs five years ago. This publication could be used in the essay to support such arrangement as introduction of marine bioregional planning and creation of marine reserves.
Gissi, E., Manea, E., Mazaris, A. D., Fraschetti, S., Almpanidou, V., Bevilacqua, S., & Katsanevakis, S. (2021). A review of the combined effects of climate change and other local human stressors on the marine environment. Science of the Total Environment, 755, 1-14. Web.
The specialization of the authors of this study is related to ecology, environment, and natural resources management. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of how climate change and human activities destroy the marine environment. More precisely, it examines how industrial fisheries affect changes in temperature, sea level, marine litter, and live of alien species. The article is immensely illustrative because it contains the world map of marine realms and provinces and several graphs and charts that demonstrate the effects of human stressors and climate change on the marine environment. The paper also contains a table with the research’s objectives and research questions and a table that defines the key terminology.
This article is helpful for the essay because it outlines why the marine environment, and its diversity could be destroyed. One might claim that the disadvantage of this paper is that it targets the problem on the global level and, therefore, misses local peculiarities. To some extent, this criticism is valid; however, it briefly mentions the case of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and corals around Barrow Island. These examples could be utilized in the essay to illustrate such arrangement as discontinuation of overfishing.
Hallett, C. S., Hobday, A. J., Tweedley, J. R., Thompson, P. A., McMahon, K., & Valesini, F. J. (2018). Observed and predicted impacts of climate change on the estuaries of south-western Australia, a Mediterranean climate region.Regional Environmental Change, 18(5), 1357-1373. Web.
The authors of this article are experts in fisheries research, oceanography, and marine ecosystems. The purpose of their study is to predict how climate change will affect the deltas of rivers in south-western Australia. The authors note that the general tendency in the Mediterranean region is that the climate is becoming warmer and drier. Consequently, the climate in south-western Australia is characterized by the increase of average temperature of air and the reduction of annual precipitation. The climate changes, in their turn, pose a significant threat to the diversity of the marine environment.
The article contains numerous illustrations and schemes that visualize and explain the effects of various climate drivers (air temperature, rainfalls, storms, sea level, CO2) on the environment. This study complements the aforementioned paper of Gissi et al. (2021) because it focuses on the analysis of south-western Australia. Besides, from this paper, it could be inferred which factors are the most harmful for the local marine diversity. Hence, the paper supports the idea that it is necessary to expose estuaries to reduce the frequency of heavy rainfalls in the wet areas and fight algal blooms to preserve Australias diverse marine environment.
Miller, R. L., Marsh, H., Cottrell, A., & Hamann, M. (2018). Protecting migratory species in the Australian marine environment: a cross-jurisdictional analysis of policy and management plans. Frontiers in Marine Science, 5, 1-13. Web.
This study was conducted by the environmental scientists of the James Cook University of Australia. The significance of this study for the future essay lies in the fact that it analyzes the policies and management plans of protecting migratory species in the Australian marine environment. In other words, the scholars tell the audience how to protect marine biodiversity in Australia. The research methods include document analysis and comparative case studies. More precisely, the article reviews environmental policies that were introduced at the national level and in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, and Victoria. As for case studies, the scholars considered six species of marine turtles, dugongs, humpback whales, and twenty-seven species of migratory shorebirds.
Even though the study is comprehensive and provides an excellent overview of marine environment protection, it has several limitations. Firstly, the study only compares policies without making any inferences from this comparison. Nonetheless, it is not a significant disadvantage of this study because the expert audience could make these inferences based on the results of the conducted analysis. Secondly, some data was unavailable and, thus, it became impossible to check the effects of some policy instruments. Still, the paper supports the need to impose obligations on marine environment protection on the international level.