Eastern Recherche Marine Park is a

marine park A marine park is a designated park consisting of an area of sea (or lake) set aside to achieve ecological sustainability, promote marine awareness and understanding, enable marine recreational activities, and provide benefits for Indigenous peo ...

adjacent to the

Recherche Archipelago The Archipelago of the Recherche, known locally as the Bay of Isles, is a group of 105 islands, and over 1200 "obstacles to shipping", off the south coast of Western Australia. The islands stretch from east to west and to off-shore encomp ...

, close to the Western Australian

Cape Arid National Park Cape Arid National Park is a List of national parks of Australia, national park located in Western Australia, southeast of Perth. The park is situated east of Esperance, Western Australia, Esperance and lies on the shore of the South coast of ...

, and 135 km east of Esperance, on the south coast of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. It has consists of two sections: one of which is managed as an

IUCN protected area category IUCN protected area categories, or IUCN protected area management categories, are categories used to classify protected areas in a system developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The enlisting of such areas is part ...

VI ( sustainable use of natural resources), and a further section of which is managed as an

II (national park). The maximum depth of the park is . It was proclaimed under the

EPBC Act The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...

in 2013 and given its present name in 2017. The park contains habitats adjacent to the Recherche Archipelago, which contains over 150 islands stretching over 200 km² of ocean, and is an area of high biodiversity. It also contains an extensive area of rocky reef environments, in addition to

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

habitats. Both the reef and seagrass habitats support many warm temperate species. The park contains two known shipwrecks listed under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1997: ''Rodondo'' (1894) and the ''Start'' (1879).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastern Recherche Marine Park Exclusive economic zone of Australia