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Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority :: Second community participation phase

Second community participation phase

(June - August 2003)

The Draft Zoning Plan was released in June 2003 and the community invited to provide submissions by 4 August 2003. The second community participation phase included:

  • More than 360 meetings/information sessions with thousands of people along the Great Barrier Reef coast
  • The distribution of 76 000 Draft Zoning Plans, 57 000 submission forms, 29 000 explanatory brochures and more than 2100 Compact Discs
  • More than 500 media reports
  • 88 newspaper advertisements
  • Almost 2000 calls to our free-call 1800 number
  • 35 000 hits on the RAP website (63 per cent from Australia, the rest from 99 countries).

Unlike the first community participation phase that sought a broad set of information from the community about Marine Park uses and values, the second phase of consultation focused community comment on the Draft Zoning Plan. A more focussed questionnaire (covering both sides of an A3 page) accompanied the Draft Zoning Plan and assisted public comment. The questionnaire prompted people to identify the draft zones they did not support and requested them to provide alternative options and to state their reasons. The questionnaire also prompted people to nominate those proposed zones they did support with reasons why and to make comment on the draft zoning provisions.

Not all community members were happy with the Draft Zoning Plan. When questioned, some admitted they had not put in a submission in the first place. Without promising that every comment could possibly be incorporated, and reminding everyone that there would likely be many veiws of what to do for the same area, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) encouraged the public that their input was important and all submissions would be fully considered.

Over 21 500 submissions were received by the close of community participation phase Two from a wide range of users, Traditional Owners, local communities, other stakeholders and the public. This time, over 97 per cent of submissions used the questionnaires provided. Like community participation phase one, the huge number of submissions required an innovative and effective process for analysis, and each submission was scanned, analysed by GBRMPA staff and recorded in a detailed database.

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