South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network
Click on the map or select a reserve from the list below
Australia's South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network stretches from the far south coast of New South Wales, around Tasmania and Victoria and west to Kangaroo Island off South Australia. The reserves include striking features such as underwater canyons and mountains, and the diverse marine life associated with them, some of which is new to science and found nowhere else in the world.
The network includes 14 Commonwealth Marine Reserves. The reserves are:
- Apollo Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Beagle Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Boags Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- East Gippsland Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Franklin Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Freycinet Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Huon Commonwealth Marine Reserve (incorporating the Tasmanian Seamounts Marine Reserve)
- Macquarie Island Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Murray Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Nelson Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- South Tasman Rise Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Tasman Fracture Commonwealth Marine Reserve
- Zeehan Commonwealth Marine Reserve
National Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (NRSMPA)
The South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network has been designed to contribute to the National Representative system of marine protected areas (NRSMPA). Australia's governments are working together to set up a national system of protected areas throughout our entire marine zone.
The aim of NRSMPA is to protect areas which represent all of our major ecological regions and the communities of plants and animals they contain. This will help to conserve important habitats and representative samples of our marine life for present and future generations. All State and Commonwealth Marine Protected Area's contribute to the National System. The Australian Government made an international commitment to establish a representative network of marine reserves by 2012. This commitment was made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.
Seamount with urchins and corals, CSIRO