Think of tropical seas and you probably think of healthy turquoise waters abundant with sea life, not an industrial wasteland choked with oil rigs and gas pipelines. But industrialisation will be the future for Australia’s northern seas unless we take a stand.
The tropical waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria, Top End, Kimberley, Pilbara and Ningaloo are a haven for endangered sea turtles, vulnerable dugong, rare snubfin dolphins and migratory humpback whales. Yet absurdly, less than 1% of these vast waters are currently protected.

A global study found that this is one of the last remaining healthy tropical marine environments left on the planet1. But increasing pressure from the rapidly expanding oil and gas industry, seabed mining and overfishing is putting it all at risk.

Right now, Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is considering how much or how little of our northern waters he will safeguard in new marine reserves. The Minister has just released plans that would leave nearly all of our northern seas open to drilling, mining and fishing.

And now he’s asked for your feedback.

The Government is hoping to get away with protecting only a few corners of this remote ocean wilderness leaving 97% of the ‘North Marine Bioregion’ and 88% of the 'North-west Marine Bioregion’ open to industrial development. Their proposal fails to protect critical habitat for threatened species including whale sharks and flatback turtles. We need to urgently let him know that Australians around the country expect better than this.

Will you tell the Environment Minister that his current proposal to protect our tropical sea life is totally inadequate and will fail to protect our turtles, dugongs and whales from the threat of industrial development?

Please act now and send a message to the Environment Minister telling him to protect one of the last healthy tropical seas in the world in a network of marine sanctuaries from Kalbarri in Western Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland.

For more information about the Federal Government’s proposed marine reserves for the North Marine Region and North-west Marine Region please visit here: North, North-west

Jess Abrahams,
Northern Marine Campaigner

P.S. The government’s consultation ends in November. We have limited time to get the message through, please act now!

1Halpern, et.al ‘Global Map of Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems’, Science, Vol 319, February 2008.