Everything about Ashmore And Cartier Islands totally explained
The
Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands are two groups of small low-lying uninhabited tropical
islands in the
Indian Ocean situated on the edge of the
continental shelf north-west of
Australia and south of the
Indonesian island of
Roti at .
Geography
The territory includes
Ashmore Reef (West, Middle, and
East Islets) and
Cartier Island (70 km east) with, a total area of 199.45 km² within the
reefs and including the
lagoons, and 114,400 m² of dry land. While they've a total of 74.1 km of shoreline, measured along the outer edge of the reef, there are no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorage. Nearby
Hibernia Reef, 42 km Northeast of Ashmore Reef, isn't part of the territory. It has no permanently dry land area, although large parts of the reef become exposed during low tide.
- Ashmore Reef 155.40 km² area within reef (including lagoon)
- West Islet, 51,200 m² land area;
- Middle Islet, 21,200 m² land area;
- East Islet, 25,000 m² land area;
- Cartier Reef (44.03 km² area within reef (including lagoon)
- Cartier Island, 17,000 m² land area;
There is an automatic weather station on West Islet.
Government
The territory is administered from
Canberra by the
Attorney-General's Department (before
November 29,
2007 administration was carried out by the
Department of Transport and Regional Services). The FIPS-10 date code is
AT; the territory is bundled along with Australia in
ISO 3166. Defence is the responsibility of Australia, with periodic visits by the
Royal Australian Navy and
Royal Australian Air Force. The islands are visited by seasonal
caretakers.
Ecology and environment
The
Ashmore Reef Marine National Nature Reserve was established in August 1983. It is of significant
biodiversity value as it's in the flow of the
Indonesian throughflow current from the
Pacific Ocean through the
Indonesian Archipelago to the
Indian Ocean. It is also in a surface current west from the
Arafura Sea and
Timor Sea. There are 14 distinct species of
sea snake in the area, more than in any other area. There is also an unusually high level of
species diversity of
coral,
mollusks, and
fish. A memorandum of understanding between the Australian and Indonesian governments allows Indonesian fishermen access to their traditional fishing grounds within the region, subject to limits.
Cartier Island Marine Reserve includes the entire sand cay of Cartier Island, the reef surrounding it, the ocean for a 7.2 km radius around the island, and 1000 m below the seafloor. It was proclaimed in 2000.
Birds
See the article:
Birds of Ashmore Reef.
Economy and migration
There is no economic activity in the Territory.
As Ashmore Reef is the closest point of Australian territory to Indonesia, it was a popular target for
people smugglers transporting
asylum seekers to Australia. Once they'd landed on Ashmore, asylum seekers could claim to have entered Australian territory and request to be processed as refugees. The use of Ashmore for this purpose created great notoriety during late 2001, when refugee arrivals became a major political issue in Australia. As Australia wasn't the country of first asylum for these "
boat people", the Australian Government didn't consider it had a responsibility to accept them.
A number of things were done to discourage the practice such as attempting to have the people smugglers arrested in Indonesia; the so-called
Pacific Solution of processing them in third countries; the boarding and forced turnaround of the boats by Australian military forces, and finally excising Ashmore and many other small islands from the
Australian migration zone. Two boatloads of asylum seekers were each detained for several days in the lagoon at Ashmore after failed attempts by the
Royal Australian Navy to turn them back to Indonesia in October 2001.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ashmore And Cartier Islands'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://ashmore_and_cartier_islands.totallyexplained.com">Ashmore and Cartier Islands Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
