Summary

• Shipping is a major activity in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and is a significant component of Australia’s national economy.
• Shipping traffic in the Marine Park includes over 7000 voyages made by over 2000 ships every year.
• The operation of shipping within the Great Barrier Reef poses a variety of environmental risks. These risks can arise from both routine shipping operations, and from major shipping related incidents arising from groundings and/or accidental spills of oil, chemicals or cargo.
• There is relatively little information on the potential environmental impact of other cargo spillages by shipping plying the waters of the Great Barrier Reef.
• The management of shipping activities and ship-sourced pollution in the Great Barrier Reef is implemented through Australian Government and State Government legislation. This legislation also applies the management arrangements contained in international conventions and agreements relating to commercial shipping activities.
• Shipping in the Great Barrier Reef is managed at one of the highest standards applied to any body of water worldwide.
• The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority works in partnership with other Australian Government and State Government agencies, representatives from the shipping industry, and with community groups to monitor and regulate shipping activities in the Marine Park.
• Management actions include improving the navigational safety of shipping in the Great Barrier Reef, reducing ship-sourced pollutants and ensuring an effective response to shipping incidents.
• While the management of shipping is focused on preventing major incidents, oil and chemical spill contingency response plans have been developed at local, state, national and international levels.

Overview

Shipping is a significant activity within the Great Barrier Reef. Each year, more than   2100 individual ships undertake around 7600 voyages through designated shipping routes in the Great Barrier Reef. There has been slight increase in the number of ships passing through the Great Barrier Reef between 2000 and 2004 (see Table 1), and the global merchant vessel fleet has expanded in both the numbers and size of ships.¹⁴

Table 1: Ship traffic through the Great Barrier Reef between 2000 and 2004

Source: AMSA & MSQ, Preliminary report, ReefRep Traffic Information Module dated 7 June 2005.

A variety of ships ply the waters of the Great Barrier Reef, including some 2100 commercial trading ships, 1500 tourism vessels, 1000 commercial fishing vessels and some 59000 private vessels.

A large number of recreational and other commercial vessels also ply the Queensland coast on a regular basis.  In 2004 there were, some 59 000 recreational vessels registered in coastal communities adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef, and some 1500 commercial tourism vessels permitted to operate within the Great Barrier Reef region.⁹

Shipping is major component of Queensland’s economy with A$1.7 billion worth of overseas commodity exports shipped through Queensland seaports in 2000/01. This represents 14.4 percent of the total value of exports from Australia.¹ The operation of ports and shipping services in the Great Barrier Reef region contributes to economic growth, income, export earnings, and employment. A study by Ports Corporation of Queensland found that for the year ending 30 June 2002, ports directly contributed $720 million to the local economy, also generating flow-on effects to other sectors in the Queensland economy such as the finance and business services, wholesale and retail trade and manufacturing.¹¹

Cargo and shipping routes

The ships transiting through the Great Barrier Reef carry a wide range of cargo, including bauxite and alumina, manganese, iron ore, coal, sugar, general container freight and oil. These ships navigate through a number of designated routes to reach their destinations. Most ships use the ‘inner route’, a shipping lane that runs between the mainland and the inner edge of the outer barrier reefs. Ships also use designated passages, including Hydrographers Passage, Palm Passage and Grafton Passage to transit between the ‘inner route’ and the ‘outer routes’ that lie outside the outer reefs.

Shipping is a major commercial activity that is vital to exports of commodities such as bauxite, alumina, iron ore, coal and sugar. A$1.7 billion worth of exports were shipped through Queensland ports in the 2000-01 financial year.

Much of the oil carried in the inner route is in the form of refined oils such as petrol, diesel and heavy fuel oils. Tankers can carry up to 60 000 tonnes of oil through the inner shipping route, and large bulk carriers operating out of Hay Point can carry up to 4000 tonnes of fuel oil.

Oil tankers carrying crude oil transit outside of the Great Barrier Reef due to sensitivity regarding oil tanker traffic within the Great Barrier Reef. Oil tankers only venture into the Great Barrier Reef on rare occasions. A further restriction is that the waters of the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait are too shallow for large vessels (such as large oil tankers) to transit.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan (2003) describes designated shipping areas and general use areas where commercial trading ships can transit without requiring a permit (see Ship management provisions under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Zoning Plan 2003).

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