Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve and Cartier Island Marine Reserve

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Situation map

The Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve and Cartier Island Marine Reserve consists of two marine reserves located on Australia's northwest shelf in the Indian Ocean .

In this reserve are the Ashmore and Cartier Islands , an Australian outer area , about 340 kilometers off the northwest coast of the Australian continent and about 160 kilometers southwest of the Indonesian part of the island of Timor . The islands and reefs are uninhabited.

And situated in this reserve Ashmore Reef is 13 occurring Seeschlangenarten as the Kingdom of the Sea Snakes (German: Kingdom of the Sea Serpent ) because there most Seeschlangenarten earth are.

Protected areas

The Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve is located 840 km west of Darwin , 610 km north of Broome in Western Australia and 110 km south of the Indonesian Roti Island . Within the 583 km² Ashmore Reserve are three small islands, the East , Middle and West Iceland , which cover a total of 61 hectares of land. The largest is about a kilometer long.

The Cartier Island Marine Reserve is 45 km southeast of Ashmore Reef and covers an area of ​​167 km². The Cartier Island in it is devoid of vegetation.

The Ashmore reserve is divided into two protection zones, the Cartier reserve consists of only one protection zone.

Both marine protected areas provide habitat for numerous sea snakes, dugongs , reef-building corals , fish and invertebrates, as well as nesting opportunities for sea birds and sea ​​turtles . The Ashmore Conservation Area has been recognized under the Ramsar Convention since 2003 .

history

Indonesian fishermen have been coming to the area since the early 18th century, planting coconut palms on the islands, drinking water on Ashmore Reef, fishing for sea ​​cucumbers , clams and fish, hunting sea turtles, sea birds and collecting fish eggs. In November 1974, Australia and Indonesia agreed a Memorandum of Understanding that allows traditional fishermen partial access to West Island in order to receive drinking water, to visit the graves of their ancestors or to find shelter.

The Ashmore Reef is named after Samuel Ashmore, the commander of the ship Hibernia , who reached it on June 11, 1811. The northwestern Hibernia Reef was named after the ship.

American whalers hunted in the area during the 1850s, and guano was mined on West Island in the mid-19th century .

fauna and Flora

The marine environment in the Ashmore Conservation Area is characterized by two large lagoons , alternating sandbanks made of limestone rubble, variable sandy islets, and large reef banks.

The Cartier Reserve has a fully developed flattened reef with two shoals. Large numbers of hard and soft corals , sea ​​fans and sponges live on the fronts of the Ashmore and Cartier reefs .

In the protected areas, there are large areas that of seagrasses are covered, where dugongs and sea snakes swim. The waters above the sand-lime seabed are home to dugongs , sea turtles, stingrays , echinoderms , mussels , crustaceans and birds. In the lagoons in the Ashmore Conservation Area, corals, sponges, hermit crabs, and numerous sea cucumbers, echinoderms, mussels, and poly-bristles live on and under the sands.

The islands of West , Middle and East in the Ashmore Conservation Area are covered with bushes and grass that turn green in the rainy season and wither in the dry season. The islands form an important habitat for sea and migratory birds as well as sea turtles. The vegetation-free Cartier Island serves the large population of sea turtles to lay their eggs.

78 bird species have been counted in the Ashmore Conservation Area, of which 17 species are breeding birds. Among the 78 bird species are 35 species that are recognized as worthy of protection according to international rules between Australia, China, Japan and Korea. The sooty tern and noddi tern bird colonies number 50,000 breeding pairs, while the little egrets , reef freons , white-capped noddis , slipper-billed noddis , white-tailed tropical birds, and red-tailed tropical birds form smaller colonies.

The Ashmore and Cartier Conservation Area has 255 species of reef- and non-reef-forming coral, making it the most biodiverse reef on the coast of Western Australia. Three species of mussels in the Ashmore reserve are endemic ( Amoria spenceriana , Cymbiola baili, and Conus morrisoni ) and 650 species of fish have been counted.

It is estimated that around 11,000 sea turtles live in both sanctuaries, including the green turtle , loggerhead sea turtle , and hawksbill sea turtle , with the green turtle population in the Ashmore and Cartier protected areas being genetically different from the other two populations in Western Australia . There are also around 50 dugongs in the Ashmore Conservation Area , which differ from those of the Australian population; to what extent they belong to other populations of this marine area has not been researched.

The Ashmore and Cartier Conservation Area has the largest population of sea snakes in the world, with around 40,000 specimens counted in 2000. Among the 13 sea snake species in the marine park, three are endemic.

  • Loggerhead sea turtle

  • Red-tailed tropical bird

  • Green turtle

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ apscience.org.au : Taxonomy and toxinology of Australasian sea snakes. A project undertaken at the Australian Venom Research Unit and supervised by BG Fry. , in English, accessed August 22, 2011
  2. ↑ Ashmore Reef ( memento of September 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on oceandots.com (English), accessed on May 8, 2015
  3. ↑ a b c environment.gov.au ( memento of September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ): Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve and Cartier Island Marine Reserve , in English, accessed on August 22, 2011

Coordinates: 10 ° 16 ′ 0 ″  S , 144 ° 28 ′ 0 ″  E