OUR ESTATE BLUE
Australia has one of the largest maritime jurisdictions in the world, with sovereign rights over 10 million square kilometres of ocean embraced by an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that reaches 200 nautical miles (370km) from the shore.
The EEZ stretches across 40 degrees of latitude, from the warm tropical Arafura Sea north of Darwin to the near-subpolar reaches of the Southern Ocean below Tasmania. Off our east coast, ocean currents blend our territorial waters with the Pacific Ocean, while the sea off Western Australia merges in the great expanse of the Indian Ocean. As well as spanning wide arcs of the globe, Australian waters vary greatly in depth, from very shallow inshore waters to open ocean plunging more than four kilometres to a seafloor sculpted in basins, seamounts and submarine canyons.
This vast and varied ‘blue estate’ contains a huge array of habitats and ecosystems, in which thrive some of the most diverse, unique and spectacular marine life on the planet. This extraordinary array of species includes marine mammals and reptiles, more than 4000 species of fish and many thousands of invertebrates, plants and micro-organisms. All major groups of marine organisms are represented in Australian waters and many species are found nowhere else.
