Off the Murujuga (Dampier Peninsula), a remarkable underwater world unfolds: coral gardens, seagrass meadows, and ancient sponge communities sheltering an extraordinary diversity of fish, while dugongs graze, turtles navigate, and dolphins and whales move through waters that have sustained life here since long before recorded history.
Further along this coast, the Yawuru sea country of Roebuck Bay draws migratory shorebirds from across the globe, arriving after some of the longest migration routes on Earth to feed on mudflats of exceptional richness. Three hundred kilometres offshore, Scott and Seringapatam Reefs and the Rowley Shoals Marine Park sit at the very edge of the continental shelf - a critical corridor for whale and dolphin migration, and one of the most important turtle nesting grounds in the region.
These submerged sanctuaries are home to rare, endemic, and endangered species found nowhere else. Dramatic tidal surges drive nutrient-rich water up from depths of 400 metres, fuelling an explosion of biodiversity that rivals almost anywhere on the planet. Yet all of this is now under direct threat from proposed fossil fuel exploration : seismic blasting, pipe-laying, and gas drilling operations that would tear through this irreplaceable wildernesses.
