Leader: 
Funding cycle: 
National Environmental Science Program

This Theme will support the Australian Government to understand how governance in the marine environment can be coordinated, and where management effectiveness can be improved, how a national risk map can be developed and populated, and where the most significant pressures and impacts from diffuse sources are occurring.

This will be achieved through provision of research and support to describe and prioritise pressures affecting the marine environment, with a focus on risk analysis and risk management as a lens for understanding and regulating the intersection of values (social, economic and environmental) and pressures. The Theme will work to support a synthesis understanding of the spatial and temporal distribution and intensity of pressures on the marine environment, why species and systems are threatened, what the current risks are and what actions can be taken to mitigate or avoid those pressures.

The Theme will work with DoEE and other interested agencies (e.g. AFMA, AMSA, NOPSEMA) to streamline access of hub outputs into government information delivery systems to make MBH outputs a part of day to day operations. It will develop protocols and frameworks for risk management that utilise ongoing improvements in understanding of values and pressures progressed by the NESP MB Hub and others. All projects will deliver outputs via NEII compliant infrastructure.

The long term object of the Theme is to facilitate improved management of Marine Biodiversity to achieve sustainable use and conservation, to work with government and industry to implement integrated oceans management, and to support Australian Government and Industry to meet Sustainable Development Goals (Target 14) targets for Oceans.