Marine Protected Areas
West Island beach.
The area around Ashmore Reef National Nature Reserve is noted for its high biological diversity. With a variety of marine habitats including extensive seagrass meadows, sand flats, reef flats and lagoons, Ashmore Reef is able to support the greatest number of species of any area on the Western Australian coast.
Ashmore Reef has the highest known diversity and density of sea snakes in the world. Of the fourteen species of sea snakes found in the Reserve, several are found nowhere else in the world.
The Reef provides important breeding and feeding habitat for threatened species including dugongs, green turtles, loggerhead turtles and hawksbill turtles.
Surveys of the region (including Cartier and Hibernia Reefs) have discovered
Despite the small size of the islands, the Reserve supports some of the most important seabird rookeries on the North-west Shelf and is an important staging point for migratory wetland birds, especially waders. Seventy-eight species have been recorded at Ashmore Reef. Of these, seventeen have been recorded breeding at the Reef and forty-three species are cited in international agreements concerning the conservation of birds and their habitats.
Patterns in sand flats at Ashmore, Criton Glenn.
Colonies of sooty terns and common noddies can number up to 50 000 breeding pairs. Also present in smaller breeding colonies are
Ashmore Reef has three small islands. The combined area of the islands is 112 hectares with the largest island about one kilometre long. The plant communities on the islands are mainly shrubland and herb land but growth alters dramatically with the seasons. The luxuriant growth of the wet season is in sharp contrast to the dry season when a layer of dead plant material covers much of the islands.
The shrublands on West Island and East Islet are dominated by octopus bush Argusia argentea, which grows to a maximum height of two metres. On Middle Island, maritime ti-tree Suriana maritima, forms a sparse shrubland. Coconut palms around the well on West Island were planted by visiting Indonesian fishing crews to provide food and shade.