Marine parks and fish habitat areas

Marine parks and fish habitat areas

Key Finding

The vast majority of the east coast of Queensland is within one of the state's three marine parks. The total area of highly protected zones in the marine parks is 2,275,000ha or 31%. The Queensland coast also has 72 declared Fish Habitat Areas, protecting approximately 1.2 million hectares of high-quality fish habitats.

Marine parks

Marine parks are multiple-use marine protected areas established to:

  • protect tidal lands and waters
  • conserve the natural and cultural values of the marine environment
  • allow its sustainable use.

They protect habitats, including:

  • mangrove wetlands
  • seagrass beds
  • mudflats
  • sandbanks
  • beaches
  • rocky outcrops
  • fringing reefs.

Marine park total area

Queensland has three state marine parks:

The total area of state marine parks in Queensland is 7,233,400ha. All three parks are located along the east coast of Queensland.

The total 617,500ha area of the Great Sandy Marine Park includes an increase of ~40,000ha (about 7%) following a revision of the marine park outer boundary which took effect in 2024.

Managing Great Barrier Reef parks

The Great Barrier Reef Coast Marine Park runs the length of the Commonwealth Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and protects tidal lands and tidal waters. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Partnerships jointly deliver the Reef Joint Field Management Program. The program manages field operations within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, which includes the Commonwealth and State marine parks (plus Commonwealth Islands Zones) and island national parks.

The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report examines and assesses the health and management of the reef.

Managing state marine parks

Management of state marine parks is supported by:

The zoning plan is subordinate legislation to the Marine Parks Act 2004. It is the primary tool used to manage different activities in marine parks and separate potentially conflicting uses while maintaining biodiversity.

Highly protected zones

Highly protected marine park zones are matters of state environmental significance (MSES). The highly protected zones in Queensland marine parks are:

  • Conservation park (yellow) – limited fishing and crabbing
  • Buffer (olive green) – trolling only
  • Scientific research (orange) – look, but no take, research primarily around scientific research facilities
  • Marine National Park (green) – high conservation value, look, but no take
  • Preservation (pink) – a no-go area

Note that not every zone type exists in each of the three marine parks.

Along with the Commonwealth Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, 99% of the east coast of Queensland sits within a marine park. The total area of highly protected zones in state marine parks is 2,275,000ha (31% of the total state marine park area).

The new zoning plan for the Great Sandy Marine Park, effective from May 2024, increased the proportion of the marine park protected in highly protected zones from 18% to 29%.

Declared fish habitat areas

Queensland has declared fish habitat areas (FHA) that provide long-term protection for habitats essential to sustaining fish stocks and fisheries.

The declared FHA network ensures fishing for the future by protecting all inshore and estuarine fish habitats, e.g. vegetation, sand bars and rocky headlands, within declared FHAs, from the physical impacts of coastal development.

Conservation and management of the declared FHA network recognises the importance of an interconnected mosaic of fish habitats throughout Queensland to sustain local and regional fisheries.

FHAs are:

  • declared by regulation under Queensland's Fisheries Act 1994
  • part of Australia's Nationally Representative System of Marine Protected Areas
  • fit within the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Protected Area Management Category VI - Managed Resource Protected Area.

FHAs are declared to include a management A area and/or a management B area.

  • Management A areas provide high-level protection to key fish habitats, with development mainly limited to public infrastructure.
  • Management B areas allow for the construction of some private structures.
  • Both management A and B areas are MSES.

The Queensland coast has 72 declared FHAs, protecting approximately 1.2 million hectares of high-quality fish habitats. During the last four years, no new declarations have been made.

  • 1,006,500ha of fish habitats are protected in management A areas.
  • 189,500ha of fish habitats are protected in management B areas.

* Figures provided are rounded to the nearest 100ha.

Disclaimer: The State of the Environment Report 2024 (SoE2024) marine park and fish habitat area statistics are not comparable with previous SoE report figures representing the extent of marine wetlands in marine protected areas.

View Management Responses

Relevant Sustainable Development Goals’ targets

Relevant Global Biodiversity Framework targets

Download data from Queensland Government Open Data Portal

Chart information is available to download raw data

Metadata

Source: Fish habitat areas - Queensland
Owner of Dataset: Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation
Data version: N/A
Last Published Date: May 2024
Update Frequency: as needed
Scale: Each FHA plan and data in this dataset is coincident with the Digital Cadastre Database (DCDB) as at the date of plan production for each FHA (listed on FHA plan).

Source: State Marine Parks - Queensland 
Owner of Dataset: Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation 
Data version: N/A 
Last Published Date: May 2024 
Update Frequency: as needed 
Scale: The data has a range of positional accuracies depending on the source of the feature.

Report published: 2 September 2025

Website page updated: 2 September 2025