Yahoo – AFP,
Dave Clark, 6 Oct 2015
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With its
new marine reserves Chile now has a million square kilometers of sea
under
protection from commercial fishing -- "one of the biggest in the world"
(AFP Photo/Todd Essick)
|
Viña del
Mar (Chile) (AFP) - Chile declared huge new marine reserves in the Pacific in
water off Easter Island on Monday as it hosted a major conference on protecting
the world's oceans and fisheries.
The host's
announcement came as the United States unveiled two smaller protected areas and
a major global initiative to better police over-fishing and track illegal
catches.
Chile's
President Michelle Bachelet opened the Our Ocean conference by declaring a
243,630-square-mile (631,368-square-kilometer) sanctuary around iconic Easter
Island.
Taken
together with its existing marine reserves, Bachelet said, Chile now has a
million square kilometers of sea under protection from commercial fishing --
"one of the biggest in the world."
Easter
Island's waters are a spawning ground for tuna, shark, marlin and swordfish and
a food source for the Rapa Nui people of the island, who were involved in
designing the reserve.
It joins
reserves declared by the United States, Britain and New Zealand off the US
Pacific Islands, Pitcairn and the Kermadecs, as areas protected from the
depredations of unregulated fishing.
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A member of
the Easter Island delegation dances next to US Secretary of State
John Kerry
(C) and English businessman Richard Branson (L) during the "Our
Ocean"
summit in Vina del Mar, Chile, October 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Martin
Bernetti)
|
Charitable
institutions the Pew Charitable Trusts and The Bertarelli Foundation welcomed
the decision, which they said would protect 27 endangered species and the
people who fish there.
And Pedro
Edmunds Paoa, the mayor of Easter Island's Rapa Nui community, came to the
mainland to thank the conference and welcome the news that his people would be
involved in the plan.
"We
must think of optimizing our resources. Our resource is the sea and the future
of Rapa Nui is the sea," he said.
Chile
hosted Our Ocean in the picturesque Pacific port city of Valparaiso, a second
annual day-long get-together for states and foundations to pledge support for
the marine ecosystem.
President
Barack Obama addressed the meeting in a video message to announce two new US
National Marine Sanctuaries.
An
875-square-mile (2,300-square-kilometer) area of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin
that holds dozens of historic wrecks will be protected, US officials said.
Mallows Bay
on the Potomac River in Maryland, a tidal wetland and a graveyard for scuttled
warships since the Revolutionary War, will also become a reserve.
"And,
in the coming months, I will look for even more opportunities to protect our
waters," Obama said.
"We
will leave our children a planet as full of possibilities as the one we
inherited."
Several
more countries and foundations pledged funds and proposed initiatives to fight
pollution, overfishing and the acidification of the ocean by carbon emissions.
Last year's
conference in Washington saw $800 million pledged to support various
environmental initiatives and this year's host Chile hoped for similar success.
But perhaps
the initiative with the most long-term potential is a US plan to regulate the
world fish trade.
According
to a 2014 study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 29 percent of the
world's fish stocks which have been adequately studied are overexploited.
Regulation
and quota systems vary wildly around the world and some countries -–
particularly in Southeast Asia -– have been accused of allowing large-scale
unregulated fishing.
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Fishing
regulation and quota systems vary wildly around the world and some
countries -–
particularly in Southeast Asia -– have been accused of allowing
large-scale
unregulated fishing (AFP Photo/Jay Directo)
|
Targeting
'hot spots'
Part of the
US plan, dubbed Sea Scout, will seek to unite governments around the world in
the fight to identify illegal fishing vessels and fleets and bar them from
landing catches.
Under the
plan, experts will identify regional fishing "hot spots" and target
them for enforcement by member states' fisheries protection teams, the White
House said.
The US
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration will track suspicious
fishing boats by satellite and alert authorities in Indonesia, the Philippines
and other countries.
Meanwhile,
Washington will make its own fishing industry and importers serving its huge
market –- Americans eat 4.6 billion pounds of seafood per year -– track
products from their origin.
US
Secretary of State John Kerry was in Chile to present the US plan, and took the
time to talk to a group of students about the challenge of allying technology
and law enforcement.
"The
problem is there are people fishing illegally, unregulated, vast areas of the
ocean where people use fishing methods that have been prohibited," he
said.
Kerry said
governments need "the technology, the armed forces of countries, the
navies, coast guard; we need police and major commitment by countries to come
together to focus on enforcement."
The
conference will also take on the problem of pollution from the land -- such as
agricultural pesticide and fertilizer run-off and waste plastics -- hurting the
sea.
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