Chile creates largest marine reserve in the Americas

Chile adds the largest marine reserve in the Americas. “The Rapa Nui community is immensely proud of this marine park, which will protect our waters for generations to come”.

What do you think of Chile’s plans to establish two new marine sanctuaries in the waters of the Pacific?

The marine protected area scopes about 115,000 square miles of ocean around San Ambrosio and San Felix Islands collaboratively known as the Desventuradas.

Fishing will be prohibited within the Pac-Man shaped region, but in the wedge fishing will still be permitted.

“By declaring it as a marine park, no extractive or destructive activities will be allowed to occur – although a small area has been allocated for subsistence fishing”.

According to a marine biologist at National Geographic, Enric Sala, about 72% of the species in the waters around the Desventuradas Islands are endemic, meaning that they are found no where else in the world.

A sun fish swims off of the coast of Chile’s Desventuradas Islands.

“The ocean is the basis of our culture and our livelihood”, Pedro Edmunds Paoa, Easter Island’s mayor, said in a statement.

The Director of PEW’s Global Ocean Legacies, Matt Rand, says his organisation believes the “eyes on the sea” technology will be ideal for monitoring the Rapa Nui marine reserve. “Unfortunately, that led to depletion of our marine resources”.

Many countries are still working on meeting the United Nations’ quota of protecting an average of 10 percent of the world’s oceans by 2020.

The size of all protected areas in the Pacific will now be roughly 900,000 square miles, or larger than the size of Alaska.

The conference, which concluded yesterday, announced over 80 new initiatives on marine conservation and protection valued at more than US$2.1 billon.