This hebdomad , Britain declare the identification of a vast marine protect area around the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific . At 834,334 solid kilometers ( 322,138 solid miles ) , it will be the world ’s largest contiguous sea reserve .
The four remote islands are a British overseas territory , and the expanse around them are nursing home to at least 1,249 species of Pisces , seabirds , and marine mammals , concord to aPew Charitable Trust closet release . In 2013 , Pew and National Geographic joined the Pitcairn Island Council to resign a proposal calling for the creation of such a recourse . The move will hopefully protect the area from illegal sportfishing activities .
Only one of the islands , Pitcairn , is inhabited . The 1789 mutiny aboard the HMS Bounty occurred nearby , and the 50 or so residents of the island today are the descendants of the mutineers and their Tahitian companions . “ People know Pitcairn because of theMutiny on the Bounty , but their real bounty is the rich maritime life underwater,”saysEnric Sala , a National Geographic Explorer - in - Residence . Sala moderate a 2012 despatch that helped build the scientific case for the shipboard soldier protected domain ( MPA ) appellative .
“ Pitcairn ’s waters check some of the few pristine coral reef left on the planet,”Sala assure National Geographic News . “ They also incorporate intact seamounts and inscrutable - sea habitat that have not been touch by trawling and which harbor many species yet to be discovered by science . ”
This pristine ecosystem domiciliate the reality ’s deepest known living plant , an encrusting coralline algae found 382 beat ( 1,253 understructure ) below sea tier , and two coinage that are found nowhere else in the cosmos : the squirrelfish and the many - whirl butterfly stroke Pisces . The reserve will also protect one of the two persist raised coral atolls on the major planet as well as the famous , world ’s rich 40 - Mile Reef .
The new reservation will be the largest single marine protected area in the world , though the web of reserves in the Central Pacific created by the U.S. in September — thePacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument — is bigger in totality , at about 1.2 million substantial kilometers ( 490,000 square sea mile ) .
base on the 2015 budget [ pdf ] presented to sevens by Chancellor George Osborne this workweek , the MPA designation will reckon on an understanding with non - governmental organizations for artificial satellite monitoring and with authorities of relevant ports to prevent landing place of illegal pinch and to identify a pragmatic naval method of enforce the MPA .
image : Andrew Christian ( top , middle ) , Satellite Applications Catapult ( bottom ) viaPew
