title: Improving spatial prioritisation for remote marine regions: optimising biodiversity conservation and sustainable development trade-offs.
abstract: Creating large conservation zones in remote areas, with less intense stakeholder overlap and limited environmental information, requires periodic review to ensure zonation mitigates primary threats and fill gaps in representation, while achieving conservation targets. Follow-up reviews can utilise improved methods and data, potentially identifying new planning options yielding a desirable balance between stakeholder interests. This research explored a marine zoning system in north-west Australia-a biodiverse area with poorly documented biota. Although remote, it is economically significant (i.e. petroleum extraction and fishing). Stakeholder engagement was used to source the best available biodiversity and socio-economic data and advanced spatial analyses produced 765 high resolution data layers, including 674 species distributions representing 119 families. Gap analysis revealed the current proposed zoning system as inadequate, with 98.2% of species below the Convention on Biological Diversity 10% representation targets. A systematic conservation planning algorithm Maxan provided zoning options to meet representation targets while balancing this with industry interests. Resulting scenarios revealed that conservation targets could be met with minimal impacts on petroleum and fishing industries, with estimated losses of 4.9% and 7.2% respectively. The approach addressed important knowledge gaps and provided a powerful and transparent method to reconcile industry interests with marine conservation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Bentley Campus, Perth, WA 6102, Australia.|Australian Institute of Marine Science, UWA Oceans Institute (M096), 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.|Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, Department of Fisheries, Government of Western Australia, P.O. Box 20, North Beach, WA, 6920, Australia.|School of Earth and Environment and the UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.|CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, PMB 5, Floreat, Western Australia, 6014, Australia.
authors.forename: Cordelia H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, UWA Oceans Institute (M096), 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.|School of Earth and Environment and the UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Ben T
authors.initials: BT
authors.lastname: Radford
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Hugh P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Possingham
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, UWA Oceans Institute (M096), 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.|Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Heyward
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Romola R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Matthew E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Watts
authors.affiliation: Australian Fisheries Management Authority, Darwin, NT 0801, Australia.
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Prescott
authors.affiliation: Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, Department of Fisheries, Government of Western Australia, P.O. Box 20, North Beach, WA, 6920, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Newman
authors.affiliation: Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Bentley Campus, Perth, WA 6102, Australia.
authors.forename: Euan S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, UWA Oceans Institute (M096), 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Perth, WA 6009, Australia.|Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.affiliation: Western Australian Museum, Perth, WA 6986, Australia.
authors.forename: Clay W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Bryce
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Environment and the UWA Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.|ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
authors.forename: Ryan J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Lowe
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, PMB 5, Floreat, Western Australia, 6014, Australia.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Berry
authors.affiliation: Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.|Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering and the UWA Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Espinosa-Gayosso
authors.affiliation: Western Australian Fisheries and Marine Research Laboratories, Department of Fisheries, Government of Western Australia, P.O. Box 20, North Beach, WA, 6920, Australia.
authors.forename: Errol
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sporer
authors.affiliation: Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, Darwin, NT 0801, Australia.
authors.forename: Thor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saunders
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001315:Australia; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D004777:Environment; D005398:Fisheries; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D000066388:Oil and Gas Industry / Q000379:methods