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Applying the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme to Activities in Aquatic Protected Areas

Robert Gale

Australian Maritime College, LAUNCESTON, AUSTRALIA

Theme: TH4

The management challenge for Aquatic Protected Areas (APAs) is considered in terms of the European Union’s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). EMAS is an environmental auditing system that organisations can adopt on a voluntary basis. It can now be applied in Europe by any organisation that has an impact on the environment. By reviewing the impacts of their own activities, organisations are in a better position to make significant performance improvements. But what if all the organisations and activities taking place in an APA had to conform to the EMAS directive, even scientific organisations? What would be required in terms of management and audit systems?

Given the importance of APAs and the objective of reducing or eliminating negative environmental impacts, a proposal is put forward that all organisations active in APAs should seek EMAS registration. While this is a hypothetical situation for non-European organisations, EMAS provides a benchmark around which the international APA community could seek performance improvements in the operation of organisations within APAs.

Three steps are involved. First the organisation would have to conduct an environmental review in which it investigates its own interactions with the environment. Second, on the basis of the review the organisation would establish an environmental management system with the purpose of improving the environmental performance of the organisation. Third, the organisation’s environmental performance would be communicated in an environmental statement that is verified by a third party. This third party verification requirement is crucial to the external credibility of the performance reported in the environmental statement.

The implications of this proposal are explored with reference to activities in APAs.