Charity
Protect Ningaloo
#TeamFnP are passionate about our waters. Whether that's oceans, rivers or lakes we want to do our bit to help preserve our wonderfully biodiverse waters.
Each year #TeamFnP will be giving 5% of our profits to our chosen charity. Every purchase of #FnPApparel will help to preserve these UNESCO World Heritage site and for that we would like to say thank you to you, our customers.
This year our chosen charity is Protect Ningaloo. It's an amazing charity helping to preserve and protect two of the most biodiverse and stunning areas in the world. Ningaloo coral reef and Exmouth Gulf.
The Ningaloo Reef and Marine Park is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, the Ningaloo Gulf is in the zone listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. This needs to change.
Ningaloo Reef is Australia’s only fringing coral reef and one of the largest in the world, it runs parallel to The Cape Range National Park. At many points you can wade into its turquoise lagoons from the beach. 260 kilometres long, it’s home to 500 species of fish and 200 species of coral. It is also the best place on the planet to swim with the world’s largest fish, the whale shark. Here at #TeamFnP all of us have snorkelled the Ningaloo reef seeing turtles, sharks and all other kinds of amazing marine life. Some of us have even been lucky enough to see and swim with whale sharks. So this part of the world has a very a special place in our hearts.
Nigaloo Gulf is not part of the World Heritage site zone yet. It is a rare and precious estuarine system of 2600km². Relatively shallow and surrounded by life-giving mangroves, it is the engine room of the nearby reef. Its bays, islands, creeks, corals, and sponge gardens are nurseries for untold fish, crustaceans, rays, sharks and birds.
Each winter hundreds of humpback whales arrive from the Antarctic to give birth and nurse their calves. Exmouth Gulf is a critical resting area and nursing ground for one of the world’s largest humpback whale populations. It provides calm, shallow and sheltered waters for mother-calf pairs, increasing the chance of survival as they continue their southern migration.
Shipping is known to present a serious risk to humpback whales, including from potential ship strike and also disturbance from underwater noise to their crucial resting and nursing behaviour. This is why it is so important to protect the Gulf from exploitative projects on its coast line.
Threats
There are currently two projects that could have a direct impact on the Ningaloo. These would attract massive ships into Exmouth Gulf, including bulk cargo carriers, offshore oil and gas support vessels, fuel tankers, and cruise liners. The natural, intact area where the port would be constructed is home to a rich diversity of life including corals, seagrass meadows, sponge gardens, as well as vulnerable dugongs, whales, turtles, dolphins and birdlife.
Proposed Projects:
K+S Salt project which has proposed a major salt production facility on the eastern side of Exmouth Gulf, over an undeveloped, nationally listed wetland. The industrial saltworks would cover a massive area – the size of nearly 12,000 footy pitches.
The Gascoyne Gateway Ltd is proposing an industrial deep water port at beautiful Qualing Pool in the Gulf, 10km south of Exmouth. A huge rock causeway and pylon wharf structure around 1km long would be constructed, with dredging of the seabed (more than one million cubic metres), impacting or destroying precious marine habitat.
For more information and if you would like to donate personally please head over to Protect Ningaloo. Any amount you're able to give is massively appreciated and will go to preservation and protection of the Ningaloo!
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