Marine reserves are some of the few places on the planet where marine life is protected from exploitation. Though many of these reserves already exist, ocean animals require more protection than we’re currently giving them. With that in mind, the Pew Environment Group has embarked on a mission to create not just one, but fifteen new marine sanctuaries by the year 2020.
Planned Marine Reserves
Recently, Australia created the Coral Sea Marine Reserve with Pew’s help, ultimately protecting an incredible 386,000 square miles of important habitat. Gas, oil, and mineral extraction are forbidden, as is the destructive practice of trawling. This reserve and three other massive reserves near the northwest Hawaiian Islands, the Chagos Archipelago, and the Marianas Trench cover an area bigger than Greenland – 868,000 square miles. Though it’s a great start, additional reserves are needed.
In all, Pew is pushing to protect at least three percent of the world’s oceans via the creation of marine reserves. In order to accomplish their goals, the group is taking a practical stance in determining which areas to focus on.
First, they are avoiding prime fishing grounds; instead, they are protecting remote areas outside established fishing zones. Second, the group is avoiding the type of legal uncertainty they would face if they targeted areas within international waters; all targeted reserves lie within individual countries’ exclusive economic zones. Finally, Pew has decided to work with countries that have shown political will in making strong conservation moves.
According to Jay Nelson, director of the Global Ocean Legacy program, there are between fifteen and twenty large areas across the planet that meet these criteria. “Almost all of it is politically impossible,” he said in a statement. “You couldn’t plop a Yellowstone park along the California coast and say “Let me close it to fishing.” Creating these reserves will pose a political challenge, require collaboration with other nonprofit groups, and require the cooperation of local communities as well as governmental agencies.
In Bermuda, the group has created an area known as the Blue Halo by drawing a circle around the islands where fishing occurs. Inside the circle, business can continue as usual. Outside, fishing is forbidden. This allows recreational fishermen to continue to enjoy their sport, and it helps to protect important areas of sargassum, where juvenile marine species are protected from the natural dangers life in open water poses. The Blue Halo is helping Bermuda, too; the nation is rebranding itself as a prime eco-tourism destination.
Nations working with Pew to create the new reserves are also creating plans to stop illegal fishing. Satellite imagery and tightened enforcement during certain seasons are just two methods which will be used to crack down on poachers. In addition, Pew is working to create initiatives requiring fishing boats to bear universal identification numbers as shipping vessels do, and to set up an Interpol fisheries crime unit to target violators.
Although most planned marine reserves are too remote for most recreational divers to access during a standard two-week vacation, they will be veritable gold mines for scientists, who will get the opportunity to explore completely unknown territory. In the future, they may even be visited via liveaboard; wherever the new reserves are created, they are certain to offer some spectacular opportunities for adventure-seeking divers.