Yaringa Marine National Park  (776ha) is Victoria’s smallest Marine National Park  and is located in a sheltered corner in the northwest of Western Port in Watsons Inlet between Watsons Creek and Quail Island. 

The park is only accessible by boat and is a part of special protection areas that cover Western Port including the Western Port Ramsar site. The park includes large areas of  mangroves and saltmarshes that are of high value for roosting and feeding for seabirds and shorebirds.

The main habitats protected by the sanctuary include those that depend on soft sediments including mangroves, saltmarsh, mudflats and seagrass communities. More than 82 per cent of the park is intertidal. 

Around one third of the park is covered by saltmarsh that is of state signficance while  mangroves make up another third of the park and include some of the largest White Mangroves (Avicennia marina) remaining in Victoria. The mangrove fringes are inhabited by crabs and at high tide fish such as gobies, mullet, and toadfish.

The park also includes extensive intertidal and subtidal seagrass beds that provide important habitat for grazing invertebrates including many molluscs, crustaceans, polychaetes and crabs. Seagrasses also provide important nursery areas for many fish including a number of recreationally and commercially targeted specvies such as King George Whiting.  

Large intertidal flats of unvegetated mud and sand as well as seagrass areas support many invertebrates and these provde an important food resource for the many migratory shorebird species that use the park.