HOLLYWOOD starlet Isabel Lucas has been enlisted in conservationists’ controversial Battle of the Coral Sea

Lucas added her weight to the campaign yesterday, the former Cairns girl and Home and Away star pledging to be an ambassador and calling on people to make a protected marine park “happen” in the Coral Sea off Cairns. “This is a truly unique and empowering opportunity for our generation to raise awareness of the amazingly diverse richness of this marine environment, ” she said. “How many nations can ever consider the choice of declaring the largest marine heritage park on Earth?” Her sign-up comes days after angry fishermen kept the pressure on Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett at a protest meeting in Cairns. Conservation groups including the US-based Pew Foundation and the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre are lobbying for 1 million sq km of ocean between the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Australia’s maritime border to be placed in a marine park. The park would be about 100km east of Cairns at its closest point. Commercial fishing and charter fishing would be banned in the area and dive and snorkel tourism operators would need a permit.

The area in question was placed under a conservation zone in May, with commercial charter operators and researchers now required to have a permit along with commercial fishers. Marine park activists recently launched a television campaign and yesterday said Lucas was an ideal ambassador given her ties with Cairns and the way she had placed herself in the frontline of marine wildlife protection in The Cove, a film exposing the slaughter of dolphins in Japan.