Australian Marine Parks

Welcome to the Coral Sea Marine Park, one of Australia’s most spectacular marine treasures.

The park covers 989,836 square kilometres, lies off the coast of Queensland beyond the Great Barrier Reef, and is one of the world’s largest marine parks.

The Coral Sea Marine Park (CSMP) has a diverse array of habitats, such as coral reefs, sandy cays, deep sea plains and canyons.

Far beyond the Great Barrier Reef, this marine park protects:

• 16 different seafloor environments (including seamounts, canyons and plains)
• 34 vast reef areas and 67 cays and islets
• 15,000 km² of shallow reef systems
• an abundance of marine life.

Here you can find unspoiled world-class dive sites, such as isolated reefs, where colourful coral walls are the perfect backdrop for cruising reef sharks.

The park includes iconic black marlin spawning aggregations near Osprey Reef, and every year humpback whales migrate through the marine park from Antarctica.

You might catch a glimpse of a delicately patterned pipefish, or spot a huge, boldly blotched potato cod. Either way, the excellent visibility will help. You can expect to see for up to 60 metres.

Above the water, marine turtles and seabirds breed in safety on isolated cays. Six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles can be found in the Coral Sea.

This marine park is enormous (2200 km at its longest and 1300 km at its widest).

The Coral Sea Marine Park is managed using National Park, Habitat Protection and Special Purpose zones.

Parks Australia in collaboration with universities, state government agencies and federal partners is conducting research to inform monitoring and ongoing management of the Coral Sea Marine Park.

Publications

Reef Health

• Assessment of the 2024 marine heatwave on five reefs in the central Coral Sea Marine Park
• Comparison of juvenile coral assemblages between Australia’s Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef Marine Parks, 2024
• The Jewel in the Coral Sea - The cultural and ecological significance of Ashmore and Boot Reefs
• Coral Sea Marine Park Coral Reef Health Survey 2023 and 2024
• Coral Sea Marine Park Coral Reef Health survey 2022
• Our Marine Parks Grants Round 2: Diving into the Deep 2022
• Coral Sea Marine Park Coral Reef Health survey – 2021
• Coral Reef Health in the Coral Sea Marine Park – 2018-2020
• Differential bleaching susceptibility among coral taxa and colony sizes, relative to bleaching severity across Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea Marine Parks, 2023
• Tempestichthys bettyae, a new genus and species of ocean sleeper from the central Coral Sea, 2022
• Changes in the incidence of coral injuries during mass bleaching across Australia’s Coral Sea Marine Park

Island Health  

• Coral Sea Marine Park environmental assessment of islands, islets and cays of the southern and central reef systems, 2023
• Coral Sea Marine Park Island Watch Summary Report Feb-March 2022
• Coral Sea Marine Park environmental assessment of islands, islets and cays of the southern and central reef systems, 2022
• Our Marine Parks Grants Round 3: Coral Sea Marine Park Marine Debris Clean-up Voyage 2022, Tangaroa Blue Foundation
• Coral Sea Turtle Survey 2022-23
• Environmental assessment of islets and cays of Tregrosse and Lihou Reefs, Coral Sea Marine Park, July 2021
• Vegetation Assessment and Mapping of South Islet (Willis Islets), Coral Sea Marine Park
• Environmental Assessment of the Coringa Islets and Herald Cays in the Coral Sea Marine Park - 2019

For those who make the journey, this marine park rewards visitors with exceptional diving, boating, snorkelling, nature watching and fishing.

Most people visiting the marine park travel on live-aboard tour boats from Port Douglas, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Airlie Beach or Gladstone, often calling in at some Great Barrier Reef sites on the way.

The Be Pest Free in the Coral Sea biosecurity information sheet provides information to people visiting the Coral Sea Marine Park about the importance of stopping pests such as ants and rodents from being introduced onto islands. If you visit the remote islands in the Coral Sea Marine Park you need to consider your impact and ways to protect the seabirds, turtles and plants that make up these amazing but vulnerable island ecosystems.

For divers, some of the most prized underwater sites are in the Coral Sea Marine Park. Explore the reefs of the Coral Sea, including Holmes Reef and Bougainville Reef, each with unique features and a rich variety of species to enjoy.

The wild and remote Osprey Reef has been listed as one of the top ten dive sites in the world.

Some of the locals you may encounter include:

• whales and dolphins
• turtles
• seabirds
• giant hunters like marlin, swordfish, tuna and sharks

You might even spot a humpback whale between June and November.

There are at least 45 historic shipwrecks in the Coral Sea Marine Park. Click here to find out more about the military and maritime history in the Coral Sea.

Fishing in the pristine waters of the Coral Sea is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You could expect to encounter:

• marlin, both black and blue
• dogtooth tuna
• giant trevally
• mahi mahi
• wahoo
• many other species.

Most charter fishing trips will take you on three day or more live-aboard voyages to experience some amazing fishing on isolated reef systems.

The park also supports commercial fishing and shipping, which contribute to economic growth, employment and social wellbeing in Queensland coastal towns and communities.

Recreational fishing is allowed in much of the Coral Sea Marine Park, but not in the National Park zones. Check which zone you’re in before you start to fish.

Explore more of the Coral Sea:

• The Coral Sea - an overview
• Under the Coral Sea

The Coral Sea Marine Park is an ecologically significant place and an amazing destination.

Problems such as marine pollution, illegal fishing, climate change and invasive species can impact marine environments around the world, including remote ones like the Coral Sea.

Parks Australia is looking after the Coral Sea Marine Park by working in partnership with:

• communities
• scientists
• other government departments
• New Caledonia.

New Caledonia

Our intention to work collaboratively with New Caledonia was formalised in 2010, through a joint declaration that sets out our desire to work together on science, management and regional capacity building activities.

The progress of activities under the Declaration is periodically published in a newsletter. They are available in both English and French:

• 2024 newsletter - English / French
• 2020 newsletter - English / French
• 2019 newsletter - English / French

This work is helping us learn more about the Coral Sea Marine Park, and find the best ways to protect it now and into the future.

Map of marine parks in the Coral Sea

Coral Sea Marine Park, Coral Sea Natural Park New Caledonia, and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (PDF)

In 2016, Parks Australia organised the Coral Sea Clean-up and Bio-discovery Voyage.

Marine park managers were joined by:

• marine debris scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
• volunteers from Tangaroa Blue, Surfrider Foundation, and Take 3 community organisations.

The voyage team travelled across the marine park, collecting data on locations and levels of marine debris, including microplastics.

Understanding what types of debris are out there and where they turn up helps us work towards eliminating them at their source.

And of course, the team removed all the marine debris they found during the voyage.

Back in port, the team worked with artists in Cairns to host a marine debris art project.

Artists sculpted marine animals from debris, and the exhibition helped raise community awareness of marine debris issues.

Some local tour operators are now undertaking voluntary marine debris clean-ups as part of their visits to the Coral Sea.

Marine debris (rubbish in the oceans) is a global problem.

Debris includes:

• discarded and lost fishing nets and buoys
• millions of plastic bags
• water bottles
• countless tiny bits of plastic (microplastics).

Some rubbish is dumped directly into the oceans. Other pieces are lost at sea. A lot starts on land, travelling to the oceans in drains and waterways, or on the wind.

Marine debris kills marine life through entanglement and ingestion:

• Turtles and birds get tangled in discarded nets and drown.
• Seabirds eat plastic, thinking it is food, and their chicks starve when fed regurgitated plastic instead of fish.

Microplastics and their compounds make their way up the food chain, including into the seafood we eat.

And marine debris spoils the places we like to visit, making beaches unsightly.

Sea cucumbers are animals, not plants.

They have tube feet and are related to sea stars and sea urchins (they’re echinoderms).

Sea cucumbers play an important ecological role, acting like seafloor vacuum cleaners. They suck up dirty sand, digest the attached particles (this is their food), and then excrete clean sand back out onto the seafloor.

In tropical areas sea cucumbers are known as bêche de mer or trepang.

For some they’re a prized seafood delicacy, sometimes taken illegally and traded on the black market.

Parks Australia works closely with Maritime Border Command and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to stop illegal activity in marine parks.

In recent years we’ve been collaborating with these organisations to stop foreign fishing crews trying to smuggle sea cucumbers from the Coral Sea.

When these illegal operators are caught, their boats are destroyed, their catch seized and their captains and crews prosecuted.

We’re also working with scientists to find out how sea cucumber populations respond after poaching.

A crucial part of managing our parks is to have a good understanding of what’s in them, and to make checks for unexpected changes such as:

• the arrival of pest species that might impact local ecosystems
• the start of a coral bleaching event.

As part of the 2016 voyage, the team worked with scientists to survey the plant and animals living on islets and surrounding reefs in the Coral Sea Marine Park.

This was part of Parks Australia’s Bush Blitz program.

The teams surveyed four sites and found 178 different types of plants and animals.

At least 100 species were documented for the first time in the park, improving our understanding of species distributions here.

And two bug species new to science were discovered.

No pest species were detected, which was great news for the park.

The results of this survey provides a benchmark, so when we revisit these sites and repeat the surveys, we’ll have a picture of how these environments are changing.

A management plan for the Coral Sea Marine Park came into operation on 1 July 2018.

• Management Plan
• Maps of the marine park, including the zoning
• Australian Marine Parks Guideline - For the authorisation of commercial tourism and general use activities on islands in the Coral Sea, Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island Marine Parks

Regional engagement

The implementation of the Coral Sea Marine Park Management Plan is supported by the Coral Sea Marine Park Advisory Committee.