Green turtle feeding on comb jellies. Photo: Jenita Enevoldsen

More than a million square kilometres of tropical and subtropical waters make up Australia's north and north-west marine bioregions. Stretching from Shark Bay to the Western Australia/Northern Territory border, these seas are amazingly pristine.

In fact, a world-wide study of oceans ranked our Kimberley seas alongside Antarctic and Arctic waters as being some of the least impacted marine environments on Earth.

A haven for protected species, our north and north-west seas are home to creatures large and small from the spectacular whale shark (the world’s largest fish) to dolphins, whales, and tiny seahorses. Six of the world's seven sea turtle species are found right here in our own backyard.

Less than 1% of our tropical seas are protected

In the past, the remoteness of our north and north-west seas has limited their exposure to many common marine threats, but this is no longer the case. The massive expansion of the oil and gas industry – combined with destructive fishing practices – is putting huge pressure on these oceans and their inhabitants.

Less than 1% of our tropical seas are currently protected. Yet draft plans released by the Australian Government at the end of August fail to address this.

Take action now by making an online submission today

In the north-west, the proposed sanctuaries would protect only one of 15 'marine icons' recommended by environment groups for inclusion in fully-protected marine sanctuaries (see the report below).

In the north, environment groups have identified 12 ‘icon’ areas crucial for marine life protection, with again, only one of these included in proposed marine sanctuaries (see the report below).

Some important icon areas have been included in 'multiple use' zones, however this does not provide real protection, as fossil fuel drilling and most types of fishing will still be allowed.

Standing together for marine protection

To better protect marine life across northern Australia, the Wilderness Society has helped form a powerful new national alliance: Save Our Tropical Sealife. Under the alliance, a dozen of Australia’s leading environment groups are are combining their reach and resources to ensure the Federal Government upholds its election commitment to establish a world-class network of marine sanctuaries across Australia’s north and north-west by 2012.

A network of marine sanctuaries will protect the sea life in our northern waters and help safeguard the world’s endangered sea turtles, vulnerable dugong, rare dolphins, migratory whales, and fragile coral reefs.

Our northern seas are a global treasure. With increasing human pressure on the world’s oceans, Australia has a responsibility to protect this amazing tropical marine ecosystem – one of the last on our planet – for future generations.

Right now, Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to safeguard our tropical sealife by establishing an extensive network of large marine sanctuaries across Australia’s tropical north and north-west.

Take action

Act now before it's too late. Make an online submission to urge Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke to safeguard our tropical sealife by establishing an extensive network of large marine sanctuaries across Australia’s tropical north and north-west. Time is running out - submissions close on 28 November 2011.

Find out more about the Save Our Tropical Sealife alliance.

Read the two new reports: Twelve Tropical Sea Treasures: Underwater Icons of Northern Australia and Wild Blue Yonder: Fifteen underwater places for protection in Australia’s spectacular north west.

This is an Editorial from our National Campaigns Director, Lyndon Schneiders, that appeared on the ABC's, The Drum website.

How many hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars is Tony Abbott prepared to pour down the bottomless pit labelled northern development to keep Barnaby Joyce and Bill Heffernan happy?

Unfortunately it looks like the sky is the limit following reports that Team Abbott is refloating harebrain schemes to farm northern Australia by damming the rivers of the Top End.

In 2009 the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce, created by the Howard Government in 2006, released its final report. The Taskforce had been set up during the most recent frenzy of northern development nonsense run by Senator Heffernan and friends.

Dreams dashed

Much to the dismay of the northern development cheer squad, the Taskforce, informed by the best science available, found that Northern Australia will never be the food bowl of the world, Asia or even Australia, and it never was going to be even though people have been dreaming it for 150 years (and watching their dreams dashed as yet another ill-fated project falls over).

Under a best-case scenario the taskforce found agriculture could conceivably be increased from 20,000 hectares currently farmed to 60,000 hectares, within a total northern study area of approximately 100 million hectares.

There is plenty of rain in the north, but the taskforce's final report found that building new dams was not appropriate because evaporation is so high, the rain only falls during a short and intense wet season, leaving the rest of the year in effective 'drought' conditions and the water is hard to capture.

The report noted that the river systems and flood plains are so close to the coast that the water runs quickly to the sea and relatively little of the rainfall occurs in the upper reaches of rivers where the topography for dam construction is more favourable.

On top of that the ancient Northern Australian soils are nutrient-poor and highly fragile.

But even without these massive constraints, farming the north would cause a host of environmental woes: polluted rivers, massive soil erosion, salinity and loss of species. This would be on top of the negative impacts on grazing, fishing and tourism industries, not to mention the substantial costs of environmental restoration.

Politics or science?

But Heffernan won't believe it because he was removed as chair of the Land and Water Taskforce when Labor swept to power in 2007 and had the audacity to replace the politician-stacked taskforce with a body with broad scientific, pastoral and agricultural expertise.

Of course the fear-mongering and lies that pass for debate in opposition to real action in response to climate change and saving the Murray-Darling Basin has shown science and knowledge is usually the first victims of political debate in this country, and this is no different.

But then there are the real-life failures that are a little harder to ignore.

Following the most recent northern development frenzy, $220 million of taxpayer funds was ploughed into the long stalled Stage 2 of Ord River Irrigation Scheme in the eastern Kimberley. The brave new world of agricultural development was to be created by a rice bonanza.

In 2010, rural media breathlessly reported the return of rice cultivation to the Ord after an absence of 30 years. This was to be the bedrock crop for the entire Ord region.

With much less fanfare, the same outlets quietly reported two months ago that this year's crop, the second, had been infested with the destructive rice blast fungus that the agriculture department has acknowledged can never be eradicated. It was also the first time that Australian rice crops had been infested.

Good money after bad

Despite this, Team Abbott has indicated it will pour more money into a proposed Ord Stage 3. Have they lost their minds?

It is clear Abbott and friends remain wedded to the ill-considered dreams of northern development and no cost, environmental or financial, will be too high in keeping the extremists within Coalition ranks happy.

Abbott's embrace of the northern myth also puts into clearer perspective his successive attempts to overturn the Queensland Government's Wild River legislation as this legislation protects northern rivers from precisely these types of ill-thought development schemes.

For months Abbott has claimed that his opposition to wild rivers protection is a moral position based on delivering traditional owners the right to veto river protection. It is now clear that Abbott has used traditional owners as a human shield to support his northern development pipedreams and fantasies.

The original article can be seen on the The Drum website.

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Fishing nets as wide as eight kilometres and bottom trawling are devastating Australia’s marine life and undermining a Federal Government promise to create marine sanctuaries.

A report (pdf 528kb) commissioned by environment groups including the Wilderness Society has found that bottom trawling and other seafloor fishing methods are some of the world’s most indiscriminate - producing only two percent of the fish harvested from the wild but up to one third of its by-catch.

Fishing by-catch is marine wildlife inadvertently caught by fishing vessels targeting another species. Often by-catch is discarded dead or dying back into the water. Other key findings include a recent study off South Australia that estimated 374 sea lions were killed in an 18 month breeding cycle, which threatens some populations with extinction.

The Northern Prawn Fishery is killing at least 5 tonnes of marine life as by-catch for every tonne of prawns that goes to market and most of Australia’s fisheries have been reduced by 60 to 80% of their original numbers, well below the maximum threshold of 25% as recommended by scientists to ensure the conservation of fish stocks.

The report has been released as Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke considers whether to create new marine sanctuaries in Australia’s north and north-west, as part of the government’s election promise to increase protection of our marine life.

Currently, less than 5% of Australian waters are protected from fishing and mining.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to protect our marine wildlife in Commonwealth waters, which is why we are campaigning to ensure as much of our marine life is protected as possible.

Take action

Sign our cyberaction to Tony Burke, asking him to protect Australia's northern waters in marine sanctuaries.

Support our campaigns by making a tax deductible donation.

Over 500 people Australia-wide took part in World Turtle Day 2011, creating sand turtles on their local beaches in support of marine sanctuaries across northern Australia. At dozens of locations around the country, everyone had a great day full of sea, sun and sand turtles.

Some of the more surprising sand turtle creations came from the red sands of Alice Springs and even a riverbed in Germany!

We used the many of photos of sand turtles that were sent to us to create a great World Turtle Day 2011 poster.

Environment Minister Tony Burke will receive a copy of the poster – as a reminder that people around Australia and the world want protection for our sea turtles and other endangered marine life.

“Protecting our sea turtles is a national issue that we can all help with – our communities can cut down on plastic bag use and our State and Federal Environment Ministers should re-think coastal industrialisation which is likely to cause disturbance to turtles’ nesting beaches,” said Jenita Enevoldsen, from The Wilderness Society.

The events around Australia were organised by the Wilderness Society, the Australian Marine Conservation Society and the Environment Centre NT.

Sand Turtles were created at Alice Springs, NT, Bondi beach, QLD, Black's beach, Mackay, QLD, Broome, WA, Cable Beach, WA, Caloundra beach, QLD, Clarkson, WA, Cottesloe main beach, WA, James Price Point, WA, Lord Howe Island, NSW, Nobby's beach, NSW, Mindil beach, Darwin, NT, Port Noarlunga, SA, Pertenstein, Germany, Redcliffe, QLD, Rollestone, central QLD, Wollongong, NSW and Woodside beach, VIC

Click here for a pdf (2.62 MB) of the poster.

Take Action

If you couldn't make a sand sculpture on the day, but still want to help protect our turtles, send Minister Burke an urgent message today.

Media included: Darwin, Perth, Newcastle and Caloundra