GREAT news for the South Pacific is that to coincide with World Oceans’ Day on June 8, Britain has declared a huge new marine park around the Pitcairn Islands.
The area to be placed under conservation will be 834,000 square kilometres, making it one of the largest marine conservation zones in the world.
The waters around the Pitcairns are among the clearest in the world and they are home to 1,249 marine species, many of them unique to the area. The British will be using satellite surveillance to keep an eye on illegal fishing in the new reserve, as well as any other nefarious activities.*
The Pitcairn Islands, a British overseas territory, are inhabited mainly by descendants of mutineers on the HMS Bounty. Interestingly, at the time of the mutiny in 1789, the Bounty was in Tahiti on a scientific expedition, collecting botanical specimens, specifically breadfruit, for the Royal Navy.
Back to the 21st century, it was on World Oceans’ Day last year that the island state of New Caledonia in the South Pacific declared the world’s biggest ever marine protected area.
It’s Le Parc Naturel de la Mer de Corail, the Natural Park of the Coral Sea, at 1.3 million square kilometres – that’s roughly twice the size of Texas and three times the size of Germany.
Apart from its impressive size, the new park has a remarkable array of marine life, including 48 different species of sharks, 25 mammal species, five sea turtle species (including the endangered green turtle), and 19 nesting bird species (there must be smaller islands out there). There are obviously vast stretches of coral reefs too.
New Caledonia is home to the world’s largest lagoon (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), as well as the world’s second largest (after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef) double barrier reef.
The country has some of the richest biodiversity on Earth, which is why its government and conservation experts are taking measures to protect their natural treasures.**
More news from the South Pacific, and a little more history too, is that Mount Wolf, the volcano on the main island in the Galapagos group in the eastern Pacific, Isabela, has erupted for the first time in 33 years.
Isabela Island is where Charles Darwin did much of the research that led to his Origin of Species. He noticed, for example, when he was there with the HMS Beagle in the early 1830s, that what were apparently the same species of birds and tortoises showed slight variations from island to island, something that helped to trigger his thinking on natural selection and evolution.
The eruption, by the way, has so far caused no serious threat to the many endangered species of wildlife on the island, including giant tortoises and iguanas.**
So, the Galapagos are still making news with volcanic eruptions and as you will have read in this column a couple of weeks ago, some of those giant tortoises being saved from extinction.
*The Week: the Best of the British and Foreign Media.
**BBC World News.
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