Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00070:body:0:p7
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2025L00070
Segment Type: other
Provision Reference: 
Character Range: 21102–24129

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 Christmas Island 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.

     1.      Natural values

The Christmas Island 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 reefs and seamounts, that are important for biodiversity or ecosystem function and integrity.

Coral reef ecosystems (Ecosystem Karang, 珊瑚礁生态系统)

Christmas Island's coral reefs are of regional and global conservation significance. There is high coral cover and the reefs have demonstrated resilience and recovery from bleaching and cyclone events. The reef slope is an area of biological importance for marine life, including the endemic lemonpeel angelfish, Cocos angelfish and island gregory, giant manta ray and reef manta ray (ikan pari), short-beaked common dolphins and spinner dolphins (ikan lumba lumba), and benthic organisms such as sponges and other invertebrates. Much of Christmas Island's shallow fringing coral reef is protected within the long‑established Christmas Island National Park. The marine park extends these protections to new and deeper mesophotic reefs (30–60 m deep), providing continuous protection to the island's reef ecosystems.

The evolution of hybrid and endemic coral reef fauna not found anywhere else on earth is of global conservation significance. Their evolution is largely due to their geographic position at the border of 2 marine bioregions, which are subject to a mixing of Indian and Pacific Ocean waters and species.

Reef fish communities

Christmas Island's coral reefs support a rich diversity of reef fish representing a mix of Indian and Pacific Ocean species. Over 50 of the reef fish species at Christmas Island are not reported anywhere else in Australia. The outer reef slope provides habitat for batfish (ikan tempayan), which are a popular attraction among scuba divers, and habitat for valued fisheries species in deeper waters, including cods, midnight snapper (ikan tau song), oblique banded snapper (ikan krisi), paddletail snapper (ikan jenak), ruby snapper (salman merah), rosy snapper (salman karang), green jobfishes (salman biru) and red and black sepat (sepat merah and sepat