Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2015L01389:body:0:p4
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2015L01389
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 11583–14669

biological resources as they concern the park                         18
    3. Decision-making processes and impact assessment procedures              34
    4. Impact assessment procedures – matters and considerations                35
    5. Boundaries of the North Keeling Island Commonwealth Heritage
       site and the Emden historic shipwreck declared protection zone          80

Bibliography and further reading                                  125

Executive summary
Introduction
Pulu Keeling National Park protects the natural and cultural values of North Keeling Island, an uninhabited low-lying tropical oceanic coral atoll, and its surrounding marine waters within a roughly rectangular boundary framing 2,602 hectares of land and sea. The coastal waters of the island are home to a unique array of fish and coral species. North Keeling Island forms part of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, located approximately 2,900 kilometres north-west of Perth.
The park is one of the few remaining relatively pristine tropical islands in the Indian Ocean region. It contains rare ecosystems, as it is the only largely undisturbed island in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands group that retains its original ecosystems and their species. Because of its isolation, evolution and relatively minimal human impacts on its condition, the park is significant to studies of the distribution of oceanic island species and atoll formation.
North Keeling Island's forests and other native flora are examples of the original vegetation of the region and include a number of species no longer found elsewhere in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
The park performs an important role preserving examples of the natural features of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands as they would have occurred prior to human disturbance. These features include:
   * relatively pristine ecosystems and habitat of high significance for Indian Ocean seabirds, playing a vital part in the stability of the Indian Ocean seabird biota
   * one of the largest known nesting habitats for the red-footed booby in the world
   * unusual closed canopy forests comprising species generally found as stunted shrubs in successional forests on the shoreline of tropical islands elsewhere in the region
   * habitat for 10 species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) including:
    -       the buff-banded rail (Gallirallus philippensis andrewsi), listed as endangered under the EPBC Act and restricted to this island
    -       the green turtle (Chelonia mydas), listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act, nests on the island's beaches
    * habitat for the robber crab (Birgus latro), recognised for its conservation significance on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
The island is significant to studies of island biogeography because of its evolution in isolation. The Cocos (Keeling) Islands were the only coral atolls visited by Charles Darwin in the 1830s. The assemblage of flora and fauna observed by Darwin on the