Heard Island & McDonald Islands

Heard Island and the McDonald Islands were listed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1997. Situated around 4,100km south-west of Perth in the Southern Ocean, the pristine island ecosystems have had no introduced plant or animal species, and only brief human impact.

First visited in the 1855 by Peter Kemp, a British sealer, the island's population peaked at around 200 during the sealing period of 1855-1880. By the time the sealers left, most of the seal population has been wiped out. There are a number of wrecks in the vicinity of the islands.

Heard and McDonald Islands are only located 44km from each other. The nearest land from Heard and McDonald Islands is the French territory of The Kerguelen Islands, Îles Kerguelen, an archipelago of islands approximately 450 kilometres to the northwest.

Mawson Peak, the summit of Big Ben on Heard Island, is the highest Australian mountain (higher than Mount Kosciuszko), and one of only 2 active volcanoes in Australian territory, the other being McDonald Island.

The only actively volcanic subantarctic islands in the world, Heard & McDonald Islands provide an observation ground of ongoing geomorphic processes and glacial dynamics.

Volcanic activity has been observed at Heard Island since the mid 1980s, most recently August 2005, with fresh lava flows on the southwest flanks of the island.

Recent volcanic activity has dramatically altered the McDonald Islands. Sometime during the 1990s, the main island has doubled in size and increased in elevation, resulting in the complete loss of all vegetation on the islands.

The islands have been a territory of Australia since 1947, when they were transferred from the UK. The archipelago was World Heritage listed in 1997. HIMI Marine Reserve provides critical habitat for many plants and animals.