KEY POINTS:
It was the scene of some of the fiercest naval battles of World War II but environmentalists say a new fight is looming in the Coral Sea.
They launched a campaign yesterday to declare the tropical sea a marine park, linking it with the adjoining Great Barrier Reef
Marine Park and providing refuge for tiger sharks, hammerheads, manta rays and other large marine creatures.
Without protection, the Coral Sea would be vulnerable to illegal fishing, especially of sharks for their fins, and future plans for oil and gas extraction, conservation organisation WWF Australia said.
The group called on the federal government to grant protection to 780,000 sq/km of largely unspoilt tropical ocean, tripling the size of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Stretching from the outer boundary of the Great Barrier Reef to the edge of Australia's territorial waters, the Coral Sea marine reserve would be the largest in the world.
In places it would extend more than 200 nautical miles off the coast of Queensland. "The Coral Sea presents us with a unique opportunity to safeguard one of the world's few remaining pristine marine regions. If we act quickly we can protect one of our most precious and fragile resources before irreversible damage is done," said Richard Leck, WWFs marine policy manager.
"WWF and the tourism industry are very concerned that illegal fishers will raid the Coral Sea reefs mainly for shark fins for the Asian market." Populations of big oceanic predators such as sharks have plummeted 90 per cent globally since 1950, WWF said.
The Coral Sea was recently nominated by Forbes magazine as being one of the world's top 10 diving destinations. Its pristine reefs and coral cays are estimated to bring in more than A$11 million ($13 million) a year in tourist revenue.
"The Coral Sea is the new jewel in global dive tourism because it's one of the few places you can still see large shark populations," said WWF marine scientist Gilly Llewellyn.
"It's a different kind of system to the Great Barrier Reef because it's got these underwater mountains that come out of the surface from really deep water. It brings the deep ocean predators into the system."
The environmental spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, said the Coral Sea deserved greater protection. "Like the Great Barrier Reef, our greatest natural treasure, it should be cherished, and serious attention needs to be given to consider better protecting its environmental values in future," he said.
MARINE ABUNDANCE
The Coral Sea has some of the healthiest shark populations remaining in the world.
COMMONLY SEEN SPECIES INCLUDE
* Tiger Shark
* Whitetip Reef Shark
* Grey Reef Shark
* Scalloped Hammerhead
RARER SPECIES INCLUDE
* Whale Shark
* Oceanic Whitetip
* Great Hammerhead
The Coral Sea is also a refuge for manta rays, the largest ray species, and the mysterious nautilus, a cephalopod related to squid and cuttlefish which is prized for its beautiful shell.
Many of these species have been overfished in other parts of the world.