UK sets up Chagos Islands marine reserve

via Will Moller.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8599125.stm

By Paul Rincon  Science reporter, BBC News

Conservationists say the area is a biodiversity hotspot

The UK government has created the world's largest marine reserve around the Chagos Islands.

The reserve would cover a 545,000-sq-km area around the Indian Ocean archipelago, regarded as one of the world's richest marine ecosystems.

This will include an area where commercial fishing will be banned.

But islanders, who were evicted to make way for the US air base on the island of Diego Garcia, say a reserve would effectively bar them from returning.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said establishing the reserve would "double the global coverage of the world's oceans under protection".

It will protect a treasure trove of tropical, marine wildlife for posterity  William Marsden Chagos Conservation Trust

He commented: "Its creation is a major step forward for protecting the oceans, not just around BIOT [British Indian Ocean Territory] itself, but also throughout the world.

"This measure is a further demonstration of how the UK takes its international environmental responsibilities seriously."

Conservationists say the combination of tropical islands, unspoiled coral reefs and adjacent oceanic abyss makes the area a biodiversity hotspot of global importance.

The archipelago, which has been compared to the Galapagos Islands and to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, hosts the world's biggest living coral structure - the Great Chagos Bank. This is home to more than 220 coral species - almost half the recorded species of the entire Indian Ocean, and more than 1,000 species of reef fish.

William Marsden, chairman of the Chagos Conservation Trust, commented: "Today's decision by the British government is inspirational. It will protect a treasure trove of tropical, marine wildlife for posterity and create a safe haven for breeding fish stocks for the benefit of people in the region."

Mauritius has asserted a claim to sovereignty over the islands; and the UK has agreed to cede the territory when it is no longer required for defence purposes.

But in a letter to the Sunday Times newspaper earlier this year, Mauritius' High Commissioner Abhimanu Kundasamy said: "There can be no legitimacy to the [marine protected area] project without the issue of sovereignty and resettlement being addressed to the satisfaction of the government of Mauritius."

The former residents of the islands, who were evicted from the British overseas territory between 1967 and 1971 to make way for the US Air Force base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, have fought a long-running battle in the UK courts for the right to return.

Of the islands, only Diego Garcia, which has played a key role in the US-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is currently inhabited.

Resettlement fight

Some Chagossians claim the marine protected area (MPA) would "severely jeopardise" any resettlement, because it would prevent them from fishing - their main livelihood.

The islanders' legal saga is not over; Chagossians are now pursuing their cause through European courts.

In a statement on its website, The UK Chagos Support Association said the Foreign Secretary's announcement left several key questions unanswered and called on Mr Miliband to involve Chagossians in the marine protection project.

We don't want another state to come and exploit the area, do massive construction of hotels and bring in commercial fishing. Then the area will be finished  Allen Vincatassin Diego Garcian Society

The association said the announcement did not make clear whether zones could be established within the MPA in which "limited, sustainable fishing could take place".

The statement also criticised the timing of the decision: "It is... bitterly disappointing that the government has felt it appropriate to make its announcement now, whilst parliament is [in] recess."

In his statement, Mr Miliband pointed out that the decision had been taken following a consultation (in which 90% of those who responded supported greater marine protection). He also said the Foreign Office intended "to continue to work closely with all interested stakeholders".

He added that the decision over the protection zone "is, of course, without prejudice to the outcome of the current, pending proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights".

'Conservation legacy'

Some Chagossian representatives back the reserve. Allen Vincatassin, from the UK-based Diego Garcian Society, told BBC News: "I am personally delighted that the Foreign Secretary has made the brave decision to protect the (BIOT)."

Mr Vincatassin told me he regarded the issue of the MPA as separate from the question of the right to return: "If a resettlement occurs in future on the outer islands, the marine protected area can be adjusted. These are two separate issues and I think there has been a deep misunderstanding."

He called the exile of the Chagossians "a great injustice", but added: "We don't want another state to come and exploit the area, do massive construction of hotels and bring in commercial fishing. Then the area will be finished."

The islands are home to almost half the coral species in the Indian Ocean

Conservationists said the 545,000-sq-km (210,000-sq-mile) protection zone - an area twice the size of the UK - would prohibit activities such as industrial fishing and deep-sea mining.

Alistair Gammell, from the Pew Environment Group, said he was "thrilled" with the decision, adding that the oceans "desperately need better protection".

He commented: "In 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity, the UK has secured a conservation legacy which is unrivalled in scale and significance, demonstrating to the world that it is a leader in conserving the world's marine resources for the benefit of future generations."

The Foreign Office said it had been advised that the BIOT was crucial for repopulating coral systems along the East Coast of Africa and hence to the recovery in the marine food supply in sub-Saharan Africa.

The conditions of the MPA are expected to be enforced by the territory's patrol vessel.

Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Carbon credits proposed for whale conservation

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100226/full/news.2010.96.html

Thanks to Carolina Damian Mendoza

Published online 26 February 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.96 

Corrected online: 26 February 2010

Stopping whale hunting could help sequester millions of tonnes of carbon.

Richard A. Lovett

Whales are like trees — when it comes to carbon credits.Getty

Biological oceanographer Andrew Pershing wants carbon credits for whale conservation. That's because whales, he says, are like trees. "Like any animal or plant, they are made out of carbon. And whales are so big they each store a lot of carbon," he says.

Pershing, of the University of Maine in Orono and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine, calculates that even though some whale species are now recovering from the effects of factory whaling, total whale biomass today is less than one-fifth of what it was in 1900, before whaling decimated the population. Letting the whale population recover, he said on 25 February at the American Geophysical Union's 2010 Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, Oregon, could eventually sequester 9 million tonnes of carbon in their combined biomass.

He compares it to planting trees. "In a forest, trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and accumulate that as biomass. Whales take carbon out of the system through their food, then incorporate that carbon in their tissues."

Whaling, by contrast, is like cutting down trees for firewood. "You're taking whales out of the population and putting their carbon somewhere else." In the early days of whaling, Pershing explains, that carbon was going straight into the atmosphere through the burning of whale oil in lamps, for example. More recently, he says, the carbon is released through the consumption of whale meat by humans, "but you're still taking carbon out of the whale and putting it into something that's going to respire it".

Furthermore, when whales die naturally, they usually sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying their carbon with them. Back in 1900, when whale numbers were high, that would have totalled about 200,000 tonnes of carbon per year, Pershing estimates. Even though benthic creatures eventually eat the whale carcasses (see 'Bone-devouring worms discovered'), the carbon will remain in the depths, Pershing says, staying "out of the atmosphere for potentially hundreds of years".

Carbon consumers

By comparison, 9 million tonnes is only a small fraction of the 7 billion tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere each year from human activities, Pershing says, but it's still a lot. It's equivalent to 11,000 square kilometres of temperate forest, or 11,000 Hummers driving for 100 years, says Pershing.

It's also comparable to the amount of carbon involved in forest-management schemes being proposed for buying and selling carbon credits, he said. "People would pay a lot to preserve an area of forest that big."

If whales increase in numbers, other species that compete for the same food might decline. But even if ocean food supplies are limited, there could still be a substantial increase in total biomass owing to the difference in size between whales and the organisms they could displace. Because large animals require less food per unit mass than smaller animals, any given food source (such as krill) can support a lot more biomass in a whale than in a small animal such as a penguin.

Rebuilding stocks

Other scientists greeted Pershing's presentation with enthusiasm. "It's exciting," says Daniel Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It means that whales are important not just because they're charismatic, but because they play an important role in the carbon cycle."

Furthermore, he says, Pershing's research may actually understate the degree to which whales could sequester carbon. The iron in whale faeces is an important micronutrient that is often in short supply in waters such as the Southern Ocean, and it can help boost algal growth — which ultimately means more food for everything, including whales. "In order to drive these large algal blooms you need iron," says Costa. In fact, he says, the indirect benefits of iron fertilization from whale faeces might remove more carbon from the atmosphere by boosting algal growth than the growth of the whales themselves.

Pershing adds that the same analysis applies to other large ocean animals whose populations have been drastically reduced, such as bluefin tuna and some species of shark. "These guys are huge," he says. And even though all of these animals' biomass combined represents a small fraction of total human carbon emissions, they could still sequester many tonnes of carbon. "You could use carbon as one of the incentives to rebuild the stores of these large organisms," Pershing says. 

CORRECTED: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that letting whale biomass recover would sequester 105 million tonnes of carbon. Andrew Pershing has since recalculated this figure as 9 million tonnes of carbon.