Exmouth Gulf is being considered for the National Heritage List, recognising it as a place of outstanding significance.
We need your help to show why Exmouth Gulf deserves this protection.
Submissions are due by 11 March 2026
National Heritage Listing would help safeguard this spectacular marine and coastal environment for future generations.
Protect Ningaloo – AMCS was pleased to make a joint nomination with Nyinggulu Traditional Owners for National Heritage Listing.
The Australian Heritage Council is now assessing Exmouth Gulf and is asking for comment on whether it has nationally outstanding heritage values and should be included on the List. If you live in the region, have worked there or have visited, your perspective will help make the case for listing.
This is your chance to have your perspective considered in an important national process recognising Exmouth Gulf’s natural and cultural heritage.
How to make a submission
Fill in the form and make your comments in the space provided. Click send my email and an email will be sent to the Australian Heritage Council at [email protected].
Make your submission personal. These points may help you.
Let the Australian Heritage Council know:
- That you support National Heritage Listing for Exmouth Gulf.
- Why you think Exmouth Gulf has outstanding national heritage values. It doesn’t need to be detailed or technical; simply speak from your experience of the Gulf.
National Heritage Listing is important as it would officially recognise what a remarkable place Exmouth Gulf is. It would also provide an additional level of protection to its special values, wildlife and habitats, and attract funding and research. While listing would require its heritage values to be protected from development with significant impacts, it would not prevent activities that are compatible with these values. This would include well-managed nature-based tourism, as has been demonstrated at Ningaloo Reef.
Why Exmouth Gulf is a place of outstanding heritage value to Australia
- Exmouth Gulf holds significant natural heritage values, due to its unique arid zone marine and coastal ecosystems and rich biodiversity.
- Its cultural heritage significance comes from the over 40,000-year-old archaeological record of coastal occupation and marine resource use in the connected Ningaloo-Exmouth Gulf cultural landscape, and its shared cultural history to Traditional Owners.
- The Exmouth Gulf area has great significance to the Traditional Owners, the Baiyungu and Yinnigurrura people, as a site of spiritual meaning and practice.
- The East Exmouth Gulf wetland is a listed wetland of national importance, being the most outstanding, intact and largest example of its kind. It drives the high ecological productivity of the Gulf, supplying important nutrients that underpin the marine food web.
- Exmouth Gulf is a critical resting and nursing ground for one of the world’s largest humpback whale populations.
- It provides important habitat for threatened and listed species such as dugongs, turtles, manta rays, sawfish, dolphins, and sea snakes.
- It is internationally recognised as an Important Marine Mammal Area by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- Exmouth Gulf is a critical breeding, nursing and foraging habitat for a significant proportion of the largest stable dugong population in the world, recognised as a Biologically Important Area for breeding dugongs.
- Its wetlands are recognised as a Key Biodiversity Area for migratory shorebirds that rest and feed on the flats and mangroves, including threatened species such as the critically endangered eastern curlew. It qualifies as an internationally significant shorebird area for six species, and a nationally significant area for an additional ten species.
- Exmouth Gulf is a global hotspot for sea snakes, with 15 of Australia’s 35 species including two critically endangered species, and four species only found in the Gulf.
- It is also a global hotspot for rays, including the critically endangered green sawfish (with pupping and nursery habitats), giant guitarfish and bottlenose wedgefish.
- The subterranean karst limestone waterways of the Cape Range Peninsula are of outstanding universal value and one of the best examples of this type of ecosystem in the world. They are a biodiversity hotspot for subterranean fauna with many endemic species. The stygofauna adjacent to the west coast of the Gulf are genetically distinct, and associated with the only permanent surface freshwater on the Cape at Qualing Pool.
.
Header image: Andre Rerekura