Map sourced from the Wetlands of National Significance database of the Federal Dept of Environment and Water Resources.

The site comprises wetlands in the eastern part of Exmouth Gulf, from Giralia Bay; to Urala Creek Locker Point, ie. it includes marine waters less than 6 m deep at low tide, tidal mudflats, and saline coastal salt flats 5-15 km wide (coloured blue on map). Several islands subject to complete inundation are included. Physical features: Landform: Megascale irregular-straight coast within a larger embayment (Exmouth Gulf), with indentations from numerous microscale-mesoscale channels (tidal creeks); also adjoining irregular- elongate coastal (supratidal) plain, 6-10 km wide, with numerous indentations and islands of dry land. Mudflats are typically 1 km wide but up to 4 km wide in some places, e.g. Giralia Bay, and the mangroves are mostly 1 km wide. Geological setting: The coastal flats of marine sediments are situated in the Carnarvon Basin; the inland margin is defined by north-south trending sand dunes to 10 m high.

Figure 4. Map from the EPA Red Book (1975) showing areas of mangroves and algal flats in Exmouth Gulf and along the southern Pilbara coastline that are identified as having high conservation values. (p23)

Figure 5. Map from the report of the Marine Parks and Reserves Selection Working Group (1994) showing areas within Exmouth Gulf and islands off the Gulf which are recommended for reservation. (p26)

The following four maps demonstrate that the entire area which will be impacted on by Straits Salts' proposals satisfy all of the only four criteria for World Heritage Listing under the Natural Heritage Property category for Listing (the remaining six criteria deal with Cultural Property values). For more information on Listing see attached extract from the Committee's Report.

Note to map below: The Consultative Committee also offered a further three optional boundaries for Listing pp 109-115 Report on a proposal to nominate the North West Cape-Ningaloo Reef area for inscription on the World Heritage List. World Heritage Concultative Committee Final Report 18 October 2004. (5Mb pdf in new window).

Each of these three optional boundaries also encompass the entire area which will be impacted on by Straits Salts' proposals.

The map below demonstrates that the Environmental Protection Authority's Environmental Quality Objective for nearly the entire area that will be impacted on by Straits Salt is set at 'Maximum' with the remainder (essentially the open waters of the central and western Gulf) set at 'High'; again demonstrating the extremely high values of the region.