Its sparkling turquoise waters and whale sharks are well known to many, but this World Heritage treasure extends to the land, too - and conservationists fear its future is on a knife's edge.
This is a place of tender giants,
and psychedelic dwarves.
A place where the desert drinks in the sea air, kingdoms of blind troglodytes hide beneath your feet, and the gardens are plucked straight from dreams.
A place of drifters and primeval creatures who hold their secrets close.
Its traditional custodians call this place Nyinggulu. You might know it as Ningaloo.
A region of spectacular contrast on the remote West Australian coast, it is one of the last intact wild places left on the planet; an irreplaceable World Heritage treasure.
Ningaloo is fragile, and vulnerable, and a new front has opened in the fight to protect it.
It offers lessons for a world where wild places and species are vanishing.
All wildlife interactions were conducted under a specific scientific permit, as per Exmouth Parks and Wildlife, and Australian Institute of Marine Science protocols.
An emu's foot
Ningaloo is the traditional country of the West Thalanyji, Baiyungu, and Yinikurtura (also recorded as Jinigudira) people.
The Baiyungu people view the emu as creator and sustainer of diversity.
"We belong to the emu spirit dreaming. The emu is a creator. He is our creator," Hazel Walgar explains.
On country, she sings to her ancestors.
Ningaloo is best known as a pristine ocean paradise, but its wonders reach well beyond its sparkling waters.
You might picture it as being like an emu's foot. An emu has three toes, setting it apart from almost all other birds. Ningaloo has three entwined ecosystems that make up a globally unique whole: Ningaloo Reef, Cape Range and Exmouth Gulf.
An extraordinary abundance of life is found in its arid plains, rugged limestone ranges, mangrove forests and estuarine systems.
There is a rich human history here too. Rock shelters, burial grounds and midden sites – containing evidence of past hunting, gathering and food processing – reveal an Indigenous connection to country going back tens of thousands of years.
But threats lurk in the shadows – many of them human.
The reef
Measuring almost 300 kilometres, Ningaloo Reef is one of the longest fringing coral reefs on our planet.
Its species diversity is comparable to the Great Barrier Reef – and it is not bleaching as catastrophically or as often as its Queensland counterpart.
It is a haven for endangered species, including giant manta rays and dugongs. Up to 30,000 turtles nest here each season.
But its signature animal is the biggest fish in the sea.
Whale sharks underpin the economy at Ningaloo. Ecotourism generates 1,000 jobs, and draws in $110 million and 200,000 visitors each year.
Many of them seek out a close encounter with the marine giant.
Seeing one is like stepping back in time.
Despite years of study, mystery still surrounds whale sharks. Nobody knows where the females breed, or what happens to the young males that visit Ningaloo when they become adults.
What we do know is that when they leave the safe refuge of this place, they're extremely vulnerable.
In the Indo-Pacific region, home to the majority of all whale sharks, 64 per cent of the population has disappeared in the past 75 years.
"If you're talking about threats to whale sharks, I'm afraid there's a laundry list," says Dr Mark Meekan, a biologist with the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
"Plastic in the oceans. Global warming and warming oceans. Hunting and ship strike."
Ningaloo Reef is also home to more than 200 varieties of coral, 500 species of fish and 600 types of crustacean.
In the heart of the reef, a sentinel.
This is among the largest single corals on Earth.
Its exact age is a mystery but estimates put it between 600 and 1,000 years old.
Ningaloo Reef is still growing but if ocean temperatures keep rising, it will face extinction – and without coral, many of the sea's most exquisite species cannot survive.
The range
Ningaloo Reef is skirted by white sands that brush up against red dirt.
Welcome to Cape Range, a national park and the second of the emu's toes.
On the west side of this otherworldly landscape, you walk on the bones of ancient reefs.
This was once underwater, and the land holds the fossilised remains of coral, sea urchins, shells and 50-tonne Megalodon sharks.
The range's limestone ridges and four distinct wave-cut terraces tell stories about sea-level changes during the past 26 million years.
"The record of a changing climate and its effect on coral reefs is literally imprinted on the landscape," says Dr Ben Fitzpatrick, director of Oceanwise Australia.
"This record helps us understand the current-day threat climate change poses for our coral reefs."
The oldest terrace, Murion, is 1 million years old, and stands 60 metres above today's sea level.
Now high and dry, Cape Range is the realm of animals including the rare, black-flanked rock wallaby.
Once widespread across Western Australia, this intrepid mountaineer now clings to existence in a few gorges.
Further up the cape, on the ridge tops, you can still smell the sea. This place explodes into colour during wildflower season – and there's a kingdom beneath your feet.
"When I first came here, I thought 'this is such a desolate countryside'. My mind's changed completely," says cave scientist Darren Brooks.
"There is an underground sea inhabited by the most amazing animals. Beneath our feet, blind fish swim."
You see, under the Cape Range Peninsula lies a complex network of caves.
Entry to this subterranean world is not for the faint-hearted, gained by squishing and squeezing through small cracks and crevices.
"You feel like you're in the world's cloaca, its intestines, that's narrowing and narrowing. The ceiling is just a few centimetres above your head and the water's up to your chin," author and Protect Ningaloo patron Tim Winton recalls to ABC Backstory.
In here, blind cave millipedes, some found nowhere else on earth, survive on leaf litter and sticks.
Blind crickets and blind cave cockroaches feel their way in the dark.
This is the blind gudgeon, a delicate, ghostly fish.
"These have been around for 140 million years that we know of. These were around when the dinosaurs were around," Brooks says.
"Again, endemic to Cape Range. You don't get these blind fish anywhere else."
These subterranean inhabitants are one of the chief reasons Cape Range is on the World Heritage list alongside Ningaloo Reef.
But these caves are highly vulnerable to rises in sea level. Saltwater incursion would kill this aquatic environment and destroy Ningaloo's aquifer – and these embodiments of deep time would be lost forever.
The Gulf
The third toe of the emu, Exmouth Gulf, is a precious estuarine system crucial to the health of the nearby reef.
It has massive mangrove forests, tidal wetlands, and salt pans so big they're visible from space.
Known as 'Ningaloo's nursery', it is a critical resting and nursing area for one of the world's largest humpback whale populations.
In these waters, the calf will almost double its size. It will learn to socialise. It will learn how to be a whale.
When public protests ended the Australian whaling industry in 1978, there were only 300 humpbacks left in this population.
Since then, their numbers have exploded – an estimated 40,000 humpbacks migrate along the coast each year.
The peacefulness in the gulf is part of the conservation success story.
Noise is stressful for whales, and here there is no dredging, no pile driving, no heavy shipping. Just a refuge.
Because the gulf has not been industrialised and degraded, it is rich with seagrass.
That makes it a stronghold for dugongs.
These "gardeners of the sea" are threatened with extinction in many other parts of the world.
Here, they thrive.
The gulf supports 690 species of fish. It is a haven for sea snakes, including some previously believed extinct, and a lifeboat for 63 species of sharks and rays, 60 per cent of which are globally endangered or vulnerable.
A bottlenose wedgefish – a remarkable animal we know next to nothing about – was recently tagged in the gulf for the first time.
Scientists hope to be able to unlock some of its secrets; where it goes, where it gives birth.
Some of the animals here don't look like animals at all.
These technicolour sponge gardens are straight from the world of Willy Wonka.
They live most of their lives rooted in one spot, feeding by pumping water through their pores and filtering out small particles of food.
These gardens draw other species in, offering shelter, food, and opportunity to the likes of fish, feather stars, and nudibranchs.
Elsewhere in the gulf, a forest stands in seawater.
Salt is toxic to plants, but mangroves have adapted to filter it out.
Professor Catherine Lovelock, who has been studying Ningaloo's mangroves for 20 years, calls them extremophiles.
"Exmouth Gulf is a wonderful place, it's a wild place. It's not an easy place to be. But it's one of the few remaining really wild estuaries in this part of the world," she says.
These mangroves provide what Professor Lovelock calls "ecosystem services".
"Habitat for fish and snails, algae that grow on their root systems. They're the basis for a lot of other organisms that live around and on them," she says.
Without Exmouth Gulf, Ningaloo would not be what we know today. Its three ecosystems are interconnected; each toe helps the emu find balance and move forward.
But there are concerns for the future of the gulf.
It has caught the attention of developers. Gascoyne Gateway has visions for a deep-water port, and German company K+S Salt has proposed a major salt production facility.
Paul Gamblin, the director of Protect Ningaloo, says it is "a critical moment in history for Ningaloo".
People power
A generation ago, Ningaloo seemed destined to be just another bit of northern Australia ripe for development.
Then, thousands of ordinary people turned out in force to fight for it.
In 2003, a Save Ningaloo campaign stopped the construction of a large-scale marina resort in the Coral Bay area, and began pushing for broader protections.
Gamblin says the movement began on a very small scale, and built momentum as more and more people began to grasp what was at stake.
"It only takes a few people who are passionate about a place to get something going. All sorts of people come out of the woodwork to help, and bring amazing skills and capacity," he says.
Winton was at the centre of that campaign, and his love for Ningaloo has only grown in the years since. He has written about it, defended it, wept for it.
"People have asked me: 'How do you feel about exposing this fragile and wonderful place to public scrutiny on a global scale?'" he told Backstory.
"If we hadn't made Ningaloo famous 20 years ago, it would be gone already, so you have to elevate a place's social value, it's sadly sometimes its financial value, as an intact system in order to get the kind of status required to protect it."
Jake Parker, a photographer who lived in Exmouth for several years, is also helping to share Ningaloo with the world in a bid to inspire its protection.
People fight for what they love, and Parker hopes his photos will bolster Ningaloo's human defences.
"Even though it's gotten busier over the years, you can still find your own little patch of paradise where there's no-one around," he says.
"That solitude and that feeling of being free is a big part of the attraction."
In 2004, the Federal Government extended Ningaloo Marine Park, first established in 1987, to cover the entire reef, including former petroleum exploration areas.
Like a national park, marine park status enables rules and regulations around activities in the area. It includes different zones of use that seek to balance the needs and interests of people, and those of nature.
In 2011, Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range were given World Heritage standing by UNESCO. This is the highest global recognition of the significance of a place, and it comes with obligations for its conservation and protection.
Exmouth Gulf was to be included, but after lobbying by industrialists, it was excised from the boundary.
Oceanwise's Dr Fitzpatrick, who has committed his career to conserving Ningaloo, says it has been in a "constant state of limbo".
"There's a long history of the region's environmental values being highlighted and, simultaneously, major industrial projects being proposed," he says.
A new front opens
In 2021, following an Environmental Protection Authority report which found the gulf's protection needed to be "enhanced", the state government announced that a new marine park would be established there.
This will include the creation of a class-A reserve in the Qualing Pool area, the proposed location of the Gascoyne Gateway port, and a marine park on the eastern side of the gulf adjacent to the proposed salt works.
But these have not yet been established – and developers are undeterred.
"It almost feels like there's a race between government protection mechanisms that are overdue, and the proponents," Gamblin says.
Gascoyne Gateway has recently released a sustainability statement into its deep-water port proposal, which includes a renewables hub and a desalination facility.
Its chief executive, Michael Edwards, is confident the "green port" project can co-exist with a class-A nature reserve. He says it is part of a new type of conservation, and will have a "comprehensive benefit to the current environment" and the Exmouth community.
"The future of the planet relies on infrastructure like this being built, and built in the right ways," Edwards told ABC Pilbara last month.
But Gamblin says the proposal is completely incompatible with the area.
"This is a deepwater industrial port that would extend nearly a kilometre into the beautiful, special and fragile Exmouth Gulf, and involve more than a million cubic metres of dredging… ripping up the seabed," he says.
"This port would attract very large vessels – bulk carriers, fuel vessels, oil and gas vessels – through what is one of the world's most important humpback whale resting and feeding grounds."
K+S Salt is also pushing ahead with its plans for the Ashburton Salt project, which it says will be "one of the most environmentally friendly solar salt projects in Australia and worldwide".
"K+S Salt Australia has long welcomed the State Government's plan to strengthen protections for the Exmouth Gulf, including expanded marine parks," the company said in a statement.
"More than $10 million has been spent on significant environmental studies and engineering options across six years, resulting in a project that minimises any possible impacts. This includes not locating the project on the sensitive mangrove and algal mat region to the south – and relinquishing permits for those areas."
Raising the bar
The WA Environmental Protection Agency is currently assessing the proposals by Gascoyne Gateway and K+S Salt.
In a statement, the EPA said: "Gascoyne Gateway and K+S Salt will need to demonstrate to the EPA that their proposals are compatible with the protection of the key values of Exmouth Gulf."
Meanwhile, Protect Ningaloo is talking to both the state and federal governments in a bid to have Exmouth Gulf added to the National Heritage list, and then its global counterpart.
"When UNESCO officially gazetted Ningaloo – which is a big deal– they made a specific recommendation that the Australian government look to include Exmouth Gulf in the World Heritage Area, which hasn't yet happened," Gamblin says.
He says World Heritage status "raises the bar" when it comes to the protection of delicate natural environments.
"It requires more robust environmental impact assessments, and helps crystallise the values of an area," Gamblin says.
WA Environment Minister Reece Whitby did not respond directly to a question about the future heritage status of the gulf, but said: "Our Government is committed to protecting the unique environmental and cultural values of the Exmouth Gulf and safeguarding precious local habitat and marine wildlife."
He added that the government is "currently negotiating an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the Nganhurra Thanardi Garrbu Corporation, which is required for the [marine park areas] to be created".
Co-creating the future
There is a strong Indigenous presence and authority at Ningaloo. It is jointly managed by traditional custodians with deep knowledge of, and respect for, the land and sea.
Ms Walgar, a Baiyungu woman and cultural adviser with Parks and Wildlife, says the area is home to many significant sites, and should not be disturbed by development.
She hopes archaeology work will unearth more evidence of Ningaloo's Indigenous history, and help lay to rest the local myth that traditional custodians abandoned Cape Range before white settlement.
"Six years old, I went into a mission… we seen all our old people taken off their country," she recalls.
"For us to come back here – me and the younger generation walking in their footsteps. We love to share this and show people that this place is special."
Ms Walgar is working to heal country – and she is not alone. The Exmouth community includes many stewards of Ningaloo's future.
Earlier this year, Ningaloo launched a world-first community-led climate resilience strategy, as part of the Resilient Reefs initiative led by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Almost one in every five residents contributed to its development, which the initiative described as an "unprecedented level of engagement".
Ecotourism has a leading role to play in Ningaloo's future – though many warn its growth will need to be handled with care.
"My least favourite saying that I hear is, 'we've bagged out,'" Parker says – a reference to a recreational fisher reaching their catch limit.
"Some people respect and appreciate Ningaloo, but others seem to be there to pillage away. My hope is that as more people realise how special it is, there will be more care.
"You can love a place to death."
Ningaloo's story – past, present and as-yet unwritten – offers lessons for other wild places around the world.
Gamblin says it is a symbol of what can happen when people, even in small numbers, step up for the planet.
"It's a source of inspiration, I would hope, for other places that with enough will, with enough good science, enough action, good things can happen," he says.
Watch Ningaloo Nyinggulu on ABC iview.
Credits
- Reporter: Monique Ross
- Design and Digital Production: Teresa Tan
- Digital editor: Felicity Sheppard
- Images: Artemis Media, Violeta j Brosig (Blue Media Exmouth), University of Western Australia, Fremantle Herald, Roel Loopers
- Video: Artemis Media
- Satellite imagery: ESRI Satellite basemap, Google Earth
