Key facts and figures: |
Date of listing: |
22 October 1993
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Aerial view of North Stradbroke Island and Jumpinpin Channel, Photo: Jim Mollison and DoEE
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Australian Ramsar site number: |
41
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Criteria: |
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
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State/Territory: |
Queensland
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Area: |
120,654 hectares
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Drainage Division or IMCRA region: |
Central Eastern Shelf Transition; North-East Coast
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Wetland type: |
- 9 - Canals and drainage channels, ditches
- A - Permanent shallow marine waters in most cases less than six metres deep at low tide; includes sea bays and straits
- B - Marine subtidal aquatic beds; includes kelp beds, sea-grass beds, tropical marine meadows
- C - Coral reefs
- D - Rocky marine shores; includes rocky offshore islands, sea cliffs
- E - Sand, shingle or pebble shores; includes sand bars, spits and sandy islets; includes dune systems and humid dune slacks
- F - Estuarine waters; permanent water of estuaries and estuarine systems of deltas
- G - Intertidal mud, sand or salt flats
- H - Intertidal marshes; includes salt marshes, salt meadows, saltings, raised salt marshes; includes tidal brackish and freshwater marshes
- I - Intertidal forested wetlands; includes mangrove swamps, nipah swamps and tidal freshwater swamp forests
- J - Coastal brackish/saline lagoons; brackish to saline lagoons with at least one relatively narrow connection to the sea
- K - Coastal freshwater lagoons; includes freshwater delta lagoons
- L - Permanent inland deltas
- M - Permanent rivers/streams/creeks; includes waterfalls
- N - Seasonal/intermittent/irregular rivers/streams/creeks
- O - Permanent freshwater lakes (over 8 ha); includes large oxbow lakes
- P - Seasonal/intermittent freshwater lakes (over 8 ha); includes floodplain lakes
- Q - Permanent saline/brackish/alkaline lakes
- Tp - Permanent freshwater marshes/pools; ponds (below 8 ha), marshes and swamps on inorganic soils; with emergent vegetation water-logged for at least most of the growing season
- Ts - Seasonal/intermittent freshwater marshes/pools on inorganic soils; includes sloughs, potholes, seasonally flooded meadows, sedge marshes
- U - Non-forested peatlands; includes shrub or open bogs, swamps, fens
- W - Shrub-dominated wetlands; shrub swamps, shrub-dominated freshwater marshes, shrub carr, alder thicket on inorganic soils
- Xf - Freshwater, tree-dominated wetlands; includes freshwater swamp forests, seasonally flooded forests, wooded swamps on inorganic soils
- Xp - Forested peatlands; peatswamp forests
- Y - Freshwater springs; oases
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Key features of the site: |
The Moreton Bay Ramsar site is located in and around Moreton Bay, north-east, east and south-east of the city of Brisbane, in the state of Queensland, Australia. It is located approximately mid-way along the east coast of Australia at a latitude of between 27 and 28 degrees south.
The site is in a semi-enclosed basin, bounded on its eastern side by large sand islands and a deltaic coast on the western side, where large rivers discharge to the bay from a combined catchment of approximately 22,000 km2. The bay is approximately 110 km long from north to south and 35 km at its widest east to west axis.
The site meets all nine criteria for the designation of wetlands of international importance. It is notable for its large size, diversity of wetland habitats, connectivity between wetland types, as well as diverse flora and fauna that includes threatened species and ecological communities. It contains seagrass, sandy and muddy tidal flats and subtidal areas, saltmarsh, mangroves and coral communities, freshwater wetlands, as well as ocean beaches and dunes.
The site includes one of the most extensive intertidal areas of seagrass, mangrove and saltmarsh communities on the eastern coast of Australia, and is valuable for supporting fisheries resources, waterbirds and marine megafauna of conservation significance.
The site regularly supports more than 50,000 waterbirds, representing at least 43 species of shorebirds and at least 28 migratory shorebird species. The site is recognised as a network site under the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership (site code EAAF013) and supports over 1% of the estimated flyway population of at least nine migratory shorebird species, including eastern curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) and curlew sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea), which are listed as critically endangered under national environmental legislation.
The site further supports a range of internationally, nationally, state and locally significant species including the Oxleyan pygmy perch (Nannoperca oxleyana) fish, four species of acid frogs, the water mouse (Xeromys myoides), Illidge's ant-blue butterfly (Acrodipsas illidgei), and several freshwater invertebrates.
In addition to its environmental values, the site provides important cultural, social, economic and recreational values.
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Justification of the listing criteria: |
The Moreton Bay Ramsar site meets all of the nine criteria:
Criterion 1: The Moreton Bay Ramsar site is representative of sub-tropical coastal wetland systems and is one of the largest estuarine bays in Australia which are enclosed by a barrier island of vegetated sand dunes. Moreton Bay protects the local area from oceanic swells, providing habitat for wetland development. The site receives and channels the flow of numerous rivers and creeks east of the Great Dividing Range.
Criterion 2: Moreton Bay supports large numbers of migratory shorebirds and marine turtles, including the nationally threatened Green, Hawksbill, Leatherback, Olive Ridley, Loggerhead and Green Turtle. Other nationally threatened species that the site supports are the Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, Swamp Crayfish, Illidge's ant-blue butterfly Water Mouse and four acid frog species. The site marks the most southerly feeding and breeding grounds for the internationally vulnerable Dugong. The site also supports four nationally listed plant species and four threatened ecological communities.
Criterion 3: The Moreton Bay Ramsar site supports over 3000 species of marine invertebrates and at least 750 fish species. Moreton Bay supports 275 species of macroalgae, seven species of mangrove and seven species of seagrass. At least 43 species of shorebirds use intertidal habitats in the Bay, including 28 migratory species listed under international migratory bird conservation agreements. Fourteen species of marine mammals have been reported from the site.
Criterion 4: Moreton Bay is a significant feeding ground for the Green and Loggerhead Turtle and is a foraging and breeding ground for the Dugong. It supports feeding/roosting of 28 species of migratory shorebirds of the East-Asian Australasian Flyway. It provides nursery grounds for marine fish, prawns and crabs.
Criterion 5: The Moreton Bay Ramsar site supports more than 33 000 wintering and staging migratory shorebirds during the non-breeding season.
Criterion 6: The Moreton Bay Ramsar site regularly supports more than 1% of the Flyway population of 10 the wintering migratory shorebirds, including the Eastern Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit and the Grey-tailed Tattler.
Criterion 7: The site supports a diverse fish fauna due to the variety of habitats and as a meeting point between estuarine/marine habitats and tropical and temperate faunas. There are over 750 fish species in the Bay, with 27 species known only to occur here. The fish fauna has cultural, social and economic value.
Criterion 8: The site provides important habitats, feeding areas, refuges and migratory pathways for marine and estuarine fish.
Criterion 9: The site provides habitat for at least 1% of the populations of 10 species, including acid frogs, dugongs, Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, Green and Loggerhead Turtles.
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Please see the More Information page for additional information on this Ramsar site and access to the Ramsar Information sheets and other associated site documents.
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