Featured photo: Bunaken Marine Park in Indonesia (Sakurai Midori)
By Sara Jones, Research Associate at COHA
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At the 2015 Our Ocean Conference, Chilean president Michelle Bachelet announced the creation of a new marine park off the coast of Chile, which, if created, would be the largest fully protected marine reserve in the world. This action taken by Bachelet spurred questions across the international community over whether Chile might become the world's next leader in ocean conservation. The project has been met with both skepticism and enthusiastic support by the Chilean nation and by the international community.
The Nazca-Desventuradas National Marine Park was unveiled in October and will encompass a surface area of 297,518 square kilometers (114,872 square miles), the equivalent of 8 percent of the world's oceans that have been declared as no fishing areas or have no-take protections.[1] It would include the waters off the coast of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the waters surrounding San Ambrosio and San Félix Islands.[2] These two islands are called the 'Islas Desventuradas' (Unfortunate Islands) and are the namesake of the marine park. The purpose of creating this national park is to reduce the amount of fishing in the area in order to protect the ecosystems within its borders. The waters surrounding the islands have been the site of "a modest amount of fishing, mainly for swordfish" but the creation of the park designates this area as a marine protected area (MPA).[3] According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the definition of a protected area is "A clearly defined geographical space, recognized [sic], dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values."[4] The IUCN stresses the importance of having a long-term plan to actually have an impact on conservation and ocean recovery.[5] The creation of a marine reserve gives the Chilean government legal means to enforce the limits that could be imposed on fishing, especially by using its navy as a deterrent.[6] Local fisherman can still fish in an area 50 miles from the coast, but industrial fishing will ideally be eliminated.[7] |
