Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2015L01389:body:0:p18
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2015L01389
Segment Type: other
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Character Range: 51399–54249

of, particularly deep-water and other systems below scuba diving depth.
Scientific surveys have shown that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands fall within a marine suture zone where interbreeding may occur between Indian and Pacific Ocean fish species. This has resulted in a high degree of fish hybridisation around the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which could ultimately lead to the evolution of new species (Hobbs et al. 2008).
At the time of preparing this plan, 201 species of fish had been recorded in the park (Hobbs 2010). This number may increase with additional surveys, given that approximately 550 species have been recorded from the southern atoll (Allen and Smith-Vaniz 1994). Research and monitoring in the park will be undertaken in accordance with Section 3.3 of this plan, Research and monitoring.
Threats
Coral reefs worldwide are under threat, with remote reefs in the Indian Ocean being among the worst affected. In 1998, a mass coral bleaching event resulted in 90 to 99 per cent mortality of corals on many Indian Ocean reefs, and remote locations have proved particularly vulnerable to these disturbances because isolation has limited their recovery (Hobbs 2006). Coral bleaching, crown-of-thorns starfish and coral disease have also affected reefs in the Cocos-Christmas region.
More recently, an outbreak of white syndrome coral disease resulted in widespread mortality of Acropora plate corals at Christmas Island in 2008 (Hobbs and Frisch 2010). White syndrome disease was also present in 2008 on a small number of plate corals at the southern atoll, but no disease was recorded on plate corals at North Keeling Island (Hobbs and Frisch 2010). During a recent survey of North Keeling Island no occurrences of white syndrome or crown-of-thorns starfish were detected (Hobbs 2010).
Some of the stocks of fish and invertebrates in the region are highly vulnerable and isolated; they have very little resilience to overfishing and, once depleted, have almost no capacity to recover. Evidence for the fragility of the stocks is demonstrated by the regional extinctions at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands of threadfin salmon (Polynemus indicus) within the past 50 years or so, and the drastic depletions of species such as the giant clam (Tridacna gigas) within only the last 10 years (Hourston 2010).
Large quantities of plastic items from south-east Asia, where there is a high human population density in contact with an extensive coastline, end up in the surrounding seas. The accumulation of durable rubbish reaching Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands was considered to be the highest recorded within the Indian Ocean region in a survey of natural and plastic flotsam conducted by the British Natural Environmental Research Council in 2004. During the survey, 23.5% of debris investigated on the shores of the Cocos (Keeling)