Navegando entre linhas nem tão invisíveis : um estudo de caso sobre mecanismos de governança multinível na gestão da Grande Barreira de Corais na Austrália, de 2015 a 2024

Abstract

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) comprises a geographical area of approximately 348,000 square miles, with 344,400 km² representing an area equivalent to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, covering not only a great diversity of species but also of ecosystems. This work sought to understand how the use of multilevel governance mechanisms in the management of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has contributed to Global Ocean Governance for the protection of coral reefs? With this in mind, the importance of the GBR to the world is recognized through the title of World Heritage area given by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Given its large territory and the challenges of managing a multi-jurisdictional marine protected area, considerable mechanisms are incorporated into the management of the Park, which belong to different levels and scales of governance. The choice of the Great Barrier Reef region is based not only on the symbolic importance of the region as a World Heritage Area, but also on its relevance for the well-being of various marine species, and its contribution to the planning and management of other marine protected areas. Therefore, this work proposed to investigate how multilevel governance tools present themselves in the management of large-scale marine protected areas in reef ecosystems. To make this possible, a descriptive case study was carried out on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, consisting of three stages: bibliographic review, longitudinal data collection in documents and online data collection, and content analysis of the reports from Australia for the General Assemblies of the International Coral Reef Initiative. The Atlas.ti software was used to carry out the last stage of the case study, coding a set of five documents into three groups of central thematic codes. The main result of this research was the realization that there are clear correlations between the multi-level governance approach and Australia's national reef protection efforts, and the mentions are progressively more notable in recent recorded years.