Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00070:body:0:p5
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00070
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 15694–18772

park users and other government agencies. In particular:

     * a locally based community advisory committee will be established to advise on the implementation of this plan (Section 3.3 (Community advisory committee)).

     * the Director will build on existing relationships with the Shire of Christmas Island, research institutions, and government agencies with relevant responsibilities in Indian Ocean Territories waters, including DITRDCA, the Western Australian Department of Water and Environment Regulation, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Department of Defence, the Australian Border Force and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

  2.0 Christmas Island Marine Park

Image: Coral reef (Justin Gilligan)

     1.            About Christmas Island Marine Park

Christmas Island Marine Park covers 277,016 km2 of the Indian Ocean surrounding Christmas Island – nearly the entirety of Australia's waters around this remote external territory. It protects a diversity of pelagic and seafloor features, with water depths ranging from 0 m to over 6,000 m. The marine park is assigned 2 International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categories across 2 zones: a large 'green' National Park Zone (IUCN II) covering the entirety of the island's offshore waters; and a 'yellow' Habitat Protection Zone (Christmas Island) (IUCN IV) covering most of the island's inshore waters. Green zoning provides a high level of protection – for example, mining and fishing are not allowed. Yellow zoning also provides significant protection, while allowing locally important activities like recreational fishing to continue. The north-east coast of the island, which includes the active port area in and around Flying Fish Cove, is not part of the marine park, ensuring certainty for critical shipping and infrastructure activities.

The Christmas Island marine region supports high levels of species richness and diversity, including varieties of marine fauna found nowhere else in the world. The fringing coral reefs contain coral species from both Indian and Pacific Ocean bioregions, and over 680 species of fish have been recorded in the region. The overlap of these bioregions in this area has given rise to hybrid marine fish, including some endemic species.

The offshore deep-sea marine environment of the marine park is characterised by seamounts, ridges, abyssal plains and hadal (deep trough areas). The South Equatorial Current connects the Indian Ocean waters with the Indo-Pacific. The area is also influenced by tidal regimes, monsoonal climatic patterns and cyclones.

The marine environment supports some amazing species that attract tourists and researchers to the island – these include unique seabirds, whale sharks, spinner dolphins and large pelagic fish. It also supports important biological processes, such as spawning of Christmas Island's famous red crabs. The marine park adjoins Christmas Island National Park, connecting and increasing protection across land and sea for species like Abbott's booby seabirds and