Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve
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Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve is a 27,043km2
marine protected area Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conserv ...
within
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n waters located off the coast of north-east
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
. It extends to the outer limits of the Australian exclusive economic zone in the
Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...
. The reserve was established in 2007 and is part of the
South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network Australian marine parks (formerly Commonwealth marine reserves) are marine protected areas located within Australian waters and are managed by the Australian government. These waters generally extend from three nautical miles off the coast to the ...
. The reserve area contains habitat for lace corals,
sea sponge Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through t ...
s and giant crabs. A prominent feature is a large offshore
seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...
believed to be too deep to have been fished. Seamounts generally host a wide variety of habitats that support
deep ocean The deep sea is broadly defined as the ocean depth where light begins to fade, at an approximate depth of 200 metres (656 feet) or the point of transition from continental shelves to continental slopes. Conditions within the deep sea are a combin ...
biodiversity, the large seamounts to the east of Tasmania are individually important, as they are expected to include
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
species.


Protection

Most of the Flinders marine reserve area is
IUCN protected area category IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is par ...
II and zoned as 'Marine National Park'. A small portion near the coast is zoned as 'Multiple Use' (IUCN VI).


See also

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Commonwealth marine reserves Australian marine parks (formerly Commonwealth marine reserves) are marine protected areas located within Australian waters and are managed by the Australian government. These waters generally extend from three nautical miles off the coast to the ...
*
Protected areas of Australia Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...
*
Flinders Island Flinders Island, the largest island in the Furneaux Group, is a island in the Bass Strait, northeast of the island of Tasmania. Flinders Island was the place where the last remnants of aboriginal Tasmanian population were exiled by the colon ...
*
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...


Notes


References


External links


Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network website
{{Protected areas managed by the Australian Government , state=collapsed South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserves Network Protected areas established in 2007