Queensland Coastal Management Plan
The Queensland Government has recently released a new Coastal Management Plan (CMP). It is always interesting to see what different states are doing with respect to coastal management. As a nation we somewhat pride ourselves in ways the states exert their sovereignty in natural resource management. Politics plays a big part in this. In February 2015 in my third blog I wrote on the “Resurrection of the Queensland Coastal Plan”. This blog took me back to March 2011 when the then Deputy Premier and Minister for Environment jointly released the Queensland Coastal Plan. I noted that the plan was based on years of hard work and contained two interrelated parts, one as a policy for coastal management, the other as a planning policy for coastal protection. I was very impressed by the way the Labor Government had brought these two parts together for the benefit of present and future coastal use. It could have served as a template for other states. However, this coastal plan was quickly abandoned by the incoming Newman Coalition Government. When Labor came back into power ACS wrote to the new Minister for Environment requesting resurrection of the previous plan indicating that it offered greater clarity and certainty than what the Newman Government had left behind, in particular with regard to climate change.
Fast forward to 2026 and we again have a Coalition Government in Queensland with another coastal plan. But this time at least various pressures and opportunities arising from climate change are incorporated (e.g. blue carbon). The new plan references preferred management outcomes for coastal land managers. In effect it provides an updated plan that aligns with existing policy and legislation. This CMP is non-regulatory and is designed to provide “best practice coastal management guidance only”.
https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/coasts-waterways/plans/coastal-management/management-plan
The CMP is prepared under the Coastal Protection and Management Act 1995. This Act embraces a very wide coastal zone ( shown in Fig. 1) that effectively extends from the landward limit of what is termed “Coastal Plains” to the edge of Queensland state waters. Objects of the Act are to:
- Provide for the protection, conservation, rehabilitation and management of the coastal zone, including its resources and biological integrity, and
- Encourage the enhancement of knowledge of coastal resources and the effect of human activities on the coastal zone.
The CMP does not address land-use planning or development regulated under the Planning Act 2016. Information on these policies can be found on the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning website (https://www.planning.qld.gov.au). An excellent diagram (Fig. 3) describes the regulatory framework for coastal protection and management in Queensland.
Natural and cultural coastal resources of the Queensland coastal zone have features, processes and places of ecological, social and economic value. These are all subject to a range of pressures detailed in a clear way in Fig 2 of the CMP. This figure is divided into three components: list of coastal resources; what coastal resources are valued for; and what are the key pressures that impact the coastal zone. One of those pressures is climate change stated to “increase the vulnerability of Queensland’s low-lying coastal areas to erosion and storm-tide inundation”.
The Queensland CMP is structured in such a way as to provided guides to management planning, activities and works relating to:
- Maintaining coastal landforms and physical coastal processes
- Conserving nature
- Maintaining or enhancing public access and enjoyment of the coast
- Management planning
- Knowledge sharing and community engagement.
Each one of these themes considers policy, management outcomes and policy context primarily designed to be used by local government. State government agencies, traditional owners, federal and state and marine park rangers, port authorities and other managers of the coast and tidal waters will find material useful in “guiding management decisions on the coast”. For example, in the part dealing with landforms and processes the policy statement is quite brief: “The long-term stability of dunes and other coastal landforms are preserved and physical coastal processes including erosion, accretion and the movement of sediment are able to occur without interruption”. This is followed by a list of 11 expected outcomes. These can be quite specific such as No 9: “where seawalls are proposed, beach nourishment should also be undertaken to balance the loss of sediment locked up behind the seawalls”. The policy context offers more detail as to why actions may be required to address adverse impacts such as loss of beaches including reference to shoreline erosion and the use of a SEMP or State Erosion Management Plan. Various suggested management actions are listed in general terms for instance “ensuring banks of tidal rivers, creeks, and wetlands are vegetated”. An appendix is used to show a sample CMP template.
Overall this is not a prescriptive plan. As noted above it is non-regulatory. The plan offers a range of guidance allowing managing authorities to do their best with whatever resources they can muster. There is no legal guidance as to how best address conflicts between parties with different values and interests. But it does offer consistent advice for managers confronting those difficult questions where values spelled out in the CMP are challenged. It is especially enlightening to see the policy context attached to each of the five themes.
Each Australian state will have its own way of addressing key pressures similar to those discussed in the Queensland CMP. They are all are facing difficulties in prioritising resources to achieve environmental and public benefits. For most of us these constitute a shared set of values. However, varying legislative and policy positions and legacies of past decisions make implementation within and between states somewhat complex especially when we have a federal government that operates on the fringe of coastal planning and management.
Bruce Thom
Words by Prof Bruce Thom. Please respect the author’s thoughts and reference appropriately: (c) ACS, 2026. For correspondence about this blog post please email admin@australiancoastalsociety.org.au
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