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Marine Protected Areas
Mermaid Reef Marine National Nature Reserve is located about 300 kilometres north-west of Broome. The total area of the Marine National Nature Reserve is 53,984 hectares and the declaration includes the seabed and subsurface to a depth of 1000 metres.
Mermaid Reef is the most north-easterly atoll of the Rowley Shoals. It lies some 29 kilometres to the north of Clerke Reef and is representative of the early stage of shelf reef development. It is 14.5 kilometres long and has a maximum width of 7.6 kilometres. It is situated at latitude 17 degrees 7 minutes South and 119 degrees 36 minutes East.
Mermaid Reef has an outer reef rim which fully encloses an inner lagoon. The lagoon is only accessible through one navigable passage, through which tides of up to 4.5 metres ebb and flow. The depth of the lagoon averages 20 metres and is relatively unobstructed, although it does contain a few lagoonal patches of rubble mounds topped by live coral communities reaching almost to the surface. These are more common in the southern sector of the lagoon. There are no areas above high water in the Marine National Nature Reserve, but a large sand cay at the northern edge of the lagoon and several smaller cays to the west are exposed at low water.
