Herbie heads to France
Issued: 9 Jan

Established in 1974, the key objectives of the French marine reserve are to preserve habitat and species, and control human activities to make them compatible with conservation. With 5 permanent and a further 6 seasonal Rangers, there’s certainly a difference in scale compared to the over 300 Rangers that work together to protect the Great Barrier Reef. But Rangers Jo and Jess found plenty of comparable management issues and opportunities to learn and share like-minded conservation aspirations.

With a strong emphasis on community education and promoting a sense of stewardship among visitors, the French Rangers work closely with renowned Sorbonne University to track key habitat and target species to monitor the effectiveness of the conservation measures of the marine reserve. Founded in 1882, the university’s research has shown the dramatic increase in biodiversity and biomass, including a demonstrated positive ‘spillover effect’, from the marine reserve. Indicator species, the dusky grouper (Epinephelus marginatus), had just 20 fish counted in the 1980s, and now number over 700. The success of the Réserve Naturelle marine de Cerbère-Banyuls has led to both the scientific and local communities’ strong support for the expansion of the reserve, with the proposed changes more than doubling the amount of protected area.