A Park Management Perspective for Co-designing a Visitor Monitoring Plan in Remote Marine Protected Areas: A Case Study of Lalang-gaddam Marine Park, Western Australia

Globally, coastal and marine protected areas have seen significant increases in visitation. Visitors are able to access marine protected areas from multiple ingress points, making monitoring difficult. Yet managers need to establish techniques to monitor visitor use and identify change over time to ensure sustainable management for their protected areas. Lalang-gaddam Marine Park in the Kimberley region, Western Australia, has experienced increased visitation as the Kimberley’s reputation as a premier nature-based tourism destination with vibrant Aboriginal culture grows. To better understand and manage the growth in visitors, park management identified the need for a marine Visitor Monitoring Plan. To facilitate the development of the Plan, a desktop literature review was conducted to identify the suite of methods available that might assist monitoring visitors in marine protected areas with consideration to their applicability in the Australian marine context. The methods were then workshopped to design and implement the Visitor Monitoring Plan for Lalang-gaddam Marine Park as rapid growth in tourism has resulted in concern by government managing agencies, joint management Traditional Owners, commercial tourism operators, and the community. The aim of this article is twofold: to assist marine protected area managers in identifying pertinent methods and to codesign and assess the first Visitor Monitoring Plan in a joint management context in the Kimberley.