The government in Australia is planning to make an area about the size of Germany in the Southern Ocean a marine zone.
- This would help strengthen protections around Macquarie Island for millions of penguins and seals.
- The government wants to triple the size of the Macquarie Island marine park, describing it as a globally significant contribution to marine conservation that would put 388,000 sq km under high protection, according to Tanya Plibersek.
Salient features of Macquarie Island
- Macquarie Island-a UNESCO world heritage site, is an oceanic island in the Southern Ocean, lying 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and approximately halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent.
- The island is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie Ridge, raised to its present position where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate.
- It is a site of major geoconservation significance, being the only place on earth where rocks from the earth’s mantle (6 km below the ocean floor) are being actively exposed above sea-level. These unique exposures include excellent examples of pillow basalts and other extrusive rocks.
- Macquarie Ridge is one of only three such ridges that impede the eastward flow of a current called the Antarctic Circumpolar Circulation, resulting in distinct differences between the west and east sides of the ridge, which are used in different ways by different species.
