Marine park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the Brooklyn neighborhood, see Marine Park.

A marine park is a park consisting of an area of sea (or sometimes a lake) sometimes protected for recreational use, but more often set aside to preserve a specific habitat and ensure the ecosystem is sustained for the organisms that exist there. Most marine parks are designated by governments, and organized like watery national parks.

Some marine parks are quite large; the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia is the largest, at 350,000 km².

Although for many uses it is sufficient to designate the boundaries of the marine park and to inform commercial fishing boats and other maritime enterprises, some parks have gone to additional effort to make their wonders accessible to visitors. These can range from glass-bottomed boats, to small submarines, to windowed undersea tubes.

In New Zealand a marine reserve is an area which has a higher degree of legal protection than marine parks for conservation purposes.

In NSW, Australia, there are planned marine parks which will stretch along the coastline of the entire state.