Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00071:body:0:p8
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00071
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 23165–26113

The process to prepare the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park management plan continued this engagement and collaboration, with goals to protect the environment while supporting local community views and aspirations.

    2.3           Values of Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park
In simple terms, 'values' are the things in or about a place that are important to people. Identifying them helps provide focus for park management. To help describe and understand values, it can be helpful to divide them into categories, even though many may overlap these categories. The values categories for Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park are:
Natural values – species and the genetic diversity they contain, habitats, ecological communities, ecosystems, and geological and geomorphological features, and the processes that sustain them.
Cultural values – tangible and intangible aspects of culture that people want to protect, maintain and pass to future generations  including knowledge, beliefs, practices, language, traditions, places, objects, collections, stories and oral histories.
Social and economic values – the benefits for people, communities, businesses and the economy.
A summary of the values of Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park is provided below. Values are not static  new values may be identified and the relative importance of different values may change over time. The Director will consider the benefits and risks to park values when making management decisions.

    2.3.1     Natural values
Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park supports important habitats for a range of marine species, many of which breed, forage or rest in the park's waters. The marine park also contains significant features, such as reef systems and seamounts, that are important for biodiversity and ecosystem function and integrity.
Many of these values are found in the inshore waters of Cocos (Keeling) Islands themselves, while others are found in the open ocean and deep offshore waters.
Southern atoll lagoon
The extensive lagoon ecosystem at the southern atoll of Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a key ecological feature in the IOT marine region and in the Indian Ocean more broadly, where systems of this nature are rare. The lagoon covers an area of around 190 km2 and is the predominant shallow-water marine habitat in the IOT. The lagoon provides a diversity of ecosystems and habitat types that support a range of marine species, shallow and deep lagoon ecosystems and intertidal areas (Figure 2.4). Seagrass, macroalgae and coral are important structural organisms providing habitat for benthic communities not found elsewhere in the IOT. Deeper pools and channels such as those at Arus Les (The Rip) and Pulu Maraya provide important fish habitat. The marine park covers the south‑eastern half of the lagoon and the area between North Point on West Island and Horsburgh Island, capturing ecologically representative samples of all habitats in and