One of the world’s largest marine protection areas has been created off the coast of Easter Island. The Rapa Nui marine park will protect at least 142 endemic marine species, including 27 threatened with extinction. Apex predators found in the conservation zone include scalloped hammerhead sharks, minke, humpback and blue whales, and four species of sea turtle.
An astonishing 77% of the Pacific Ocean’s fish abundance occurs here and recent expeditions discovered several new species previously unknown to science.
Matt Rand, the director of the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, which campaigned for the park, said: “This marine reserve will have a huge global significance for the conservation of oceans and of indigenous people’s ways of life.”
Extractive industries and industrial fishing will be banned inside the reserve, but the indigenous Rapa Nui will be allowed to continue their traditional artisanal fishing on small boats, using hand lines with rocks for weights.
Ludovic Burns Tuki, the director of the Mesa del mar coalition of more than 20 Rapa Nui groups, said: “This process can be an example for the creation of other marine reserves that we need to protect our oceans – with a respect for the human dimension.”
After the creation of a comparable marine protection area around the nearby Pitcairn Islands last year, proposals for a reserve in the Austral Islands’ waters could soon create a protected area of more than 2m square kilometres. This would have a unifying potential for the Polynesian people, according to Burns Tuki.
As global warming takes hold, some scientific papers suggest that marine reserves may also help mitigate climate change and provide a vital carbon sink. The deep, clear and cool waters around Easter Island are also a resilient area for coral reefs.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has called for 30% of the world’s oceans to be protected, but only about 1.6 per cent has so far been covered by marine protection areas.
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Source: The Guardian, 8 September 2017