The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) requires operators of certain activities to develop an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) to manage their operations and to ensure practical steps are taken to complete the project while providing the necessary protection for the Marine Park. Where an EMP is required it is set out as a condition of a Marine Parks permit.

Assistance

If you are required to prepare an EMP then the following guide should assist you in understanding the purpose of an EMP, what aspects you should cover and what level of detail should be included. Some of the things in this guide may not apply to you – it is designed to cover a wide range of operations from large developments to small vessel operations.

Please contact the Environmental Impact Management (EIM) unit at GBRMPA on (07) 4750 0700 if you need any help in preparing your EMP or if you have any questions. We are happy to help so the EMP will be effective and protect the values of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

EMP – Role

The EMP should be simple, effective, designed to suit your particular operation and dynamic (can change with time, including through continual improvement). Generally an EMP will be comprised of an introduction/description of your operation and the surrounding area and then a series of elements that deal individually with the issues specific to your operation and site.

As a minimum the plan needs to address:

• What are the values of the Marine Park that may be impacted by your activities
• How you will manage what you do to minimise those impacts
• What you will do to ensure that all your staff and clients know what they should be doing to enjoy the Marine Park and meet the requirements of your EMP, including who is the responsible person for key actions
• How you will determine that all this is actually working, fix things that are not effective and improve your EMP.

Preparation of the EMP

Please maintain close contact with us during the preparation of the EMP.

Process

The process of having an EMP approved by the GBRMPA may require the following steps:

1. You discuss the scope of the EMP with us
2. You or your consultant prepares a draft EMP and submits to us for review
3. We assess the EMP against these guidelines and any special requirements
4. We discuss any amendments with you and if necessary you incorporate them into the EMP and resubmit it to us
5. If we are satisfied with the EMP, we will provide written approval to you.

Format

Following is a comparison of two options of suggested formats for an EMP. Depending on your preference and your operation you can format your EMP to deal with activities (for example Small Boat Operations) or to deal with issues (for example Water Quality).

Have a look at Table 1 below and then at the example EMP to see how the details can be added to make up an element of your EMP.

Table 1 Structure of EMP element

EMP Element Component	Activity Based EMP for example Small Boat Operations	Issue Based EMP for example Water Quality
Activity or Issue	The activity of your operation/construction being managed or considered	The environmental matter being managed or considered
Potential Impact/s	Description of the potential effects of the activity on all environmental issues	Description of the potential impacts of all activities on the environmental issue
Aim	What the EMP element hopes to achieve for that activity	What the EMP element hopes to achieve for that environmental issue
Management strategies	How the activity will be managed to achieve the aim	How all activities will be managed to achieve the aim
Performance indicators	What will be measured to show that the aim is being met	What will be measured to show that the aim is being met
Responsibility	Who will be the person nominated to manage this element	Who will be the person nominated to manage this element
Monitoring and Reporting	How and when will the performance indicators be measured to test whether the aim has been achieved	How and when will the performance indicators be measured to test whether the aim has been achieved
Corrective Action	Improve. The action to be taken and by whom, if a performance requirement is not met	Improve. The action to be taken and by whom, if a performance requirement is not met

You may have your own preferred format – let us know early so that we can advise if it will be suitable for our purposes.

Issues and activities to consider

The following Issues/Activities table contains a selection of the issues and activities to be addressed in your EMP. Make sure that your EMP includes all those issues relevant to your site and operation. Some of those here may not apply but others that are not here may have to be added.

Table 2 – EMP issues and activities

Environmental Matter/Activity	Examples
Air quality	Odours, smoke, fumes, chemicals
Cultural heritage	Historic shipwrecks, Indigenous values, existing use
Fuels and chemicals	Storage, handling, disposal, spill response
Marine and coastal processes	Beach erosion, altered current flows, sand movement
Marine flora and fauna	Coral, fish, seagrass, sponges, shells, birds
Noise and vibration	Construction activities, power generation, vessel movements, aircraft operations
Pontoon/ structure installation and maintenance	Installation procedures, maintenance (for example painting, wash down), inspections (structural integrity and moorings)
Safety and emergency plans	Cyclone preparation, oil spill response, missing persons
Sediment quality	Grain size, nutrients, metals
Socio-economic environment	Adjacent users, competition, land values, job creation
Solid and liquid waste	Storage, handling, disposal, transfer
Staff training	Boat operation, fuel transfer, site clean up, tourist management, EMP compliance
Vessel operations	Movement, anchoring, propwash
Water quality	Turbidity, pH, nutrients, colour, temperature, salinity

We can give you more detailed advice on matters to include once we have a better idea of your site and what you wish to do there.

Existing information

Where you already have a plan or some document that you use for your operation and it would be useful in the EMP (for example, a fuel spill response plan) or where systems are already available (for example, your existing staff training manual) you can incorporate or adapt those for inclusion in the EMP rather than completely rewrite things that you already have.

The GBRMPA also has a list of guidelines for activities that you could use or refer to in your EMP such as guidelines for diving and snorkelling, interpretive talks, touch tanks and fish feeding.

Note: Please note these EMP’s deal only with Great Barrier Reef Marine Park environment and social issues, they do not address matters such as health and safety. You should address those under the appropriate occupational health and safety and Maritime Safety Queensland guidance, for example.

Go for it

We have set out an example of the format of an activity based EMP (example EMP) to help you understand one practical way to set out the required information.

Have a look through all these, they may help you start the process. Why not try using our example EMP by copying it for each of your activities/issues and filling in your details as a cost effective way of developing a suitable EMP for your operation.

Remember, look at the examples here and get in contact with your EIM Project Manager to discuss producing your effective EMP by calling (07) 4750 0700.

Example format for one EMP element – activity based

This is one limited example of one element of an activity based EMP

EMP Element 1 - Visitor Behaviour Management

1. Activity

• Snorkelling
• Scuba diving
• Swimming
• Guided tours
• Sea walker.

2. Potential Impact/s

• Damage to corals from contact for example fins, standing, grabbing, touching, collecting shells, lifting fauna
• Increase in dead coral pavement
• Increase in macro algal cover
• Rubbish present in water
• Increase in complaints from clients.

3. Management Strategies

• Education brief given before each snorkel and dive tour.
• Look don’t touch policy with interpretation
• Post signs around site – no standing on corals etc
• Manage dive site - introduce dive trails
• Keep snorkellers out of shallow water – use buoyed lines – move with tide
• Install rest stations for swimmers
• Provide bins and collect rubbish.

4. Performance Indicators

• Minimise damage to corals from contact,
• Maintain healthy clean site – daily check
• Dive trails not eroding – monthly check
• No shells bought on board – daily check
• Regular monitoring of coral reef health in snorkel areas - annual check (see coral monitoring EMP Element)
• Prevent detrimental water quality changes.

5. Responsibility

• Dive master, pre-dive briefings
• Snorkel look out – enforce no standing,
• Field operations manager - move snorkel lines, signage.

6. Reporting Structure

• All relevant incidents/observations reported to dive master, then to vessel master. Report kept and action initiated.

7. Corrective Action

• Note made of all damaged corals, review in-water activities/practices, make suitable changes, improve education, install/improve signs, educate staff.