WASHINGTON: Amidst the flurry of growth statistics and tax announcements in the budget, you might have missed the most important story of all. Buried in the small print of the red book was some brilliant news for Fish Fighters and ocean lovers everywhere.
The government responded to calls from a coalition of conservationists, and made a commitment to create the world’s largest marine reserve, around the British overseas territory of the Pitcairn Islands.
This is an incredibly significant step forwards towards better protection of our seas, and one that will secure Britain’s ocean legacy for the future.
Pitcairn, in the South Pacific midway between New Zealand and Chile, is a fantastically special place (or so the lucky people who’ve dived there tell me).
A 2012 expedition by National Geographic revealed near-pristine ecosystems and the clearest water ever recorded in the Pacific, with visibility at a staggering 75 metres.
Around Ducie and Henderson, two of the islands in the Pitcairn group, scientists found some of the healthiest populations of sharks and top predators of any underwater environment that has ever been studied.
More than 1,200 marine species have been recorded around Pitcairn, including several that are globally threatened, such as the critically endangered hawksbill turtle and the humpback whales that travel to Pitcairn every summer to calve.
Several marine species are found only in the Pitcairn Islands, such as the iconic Henderson petrel and the elusive Pitcairn angelfish, photographed for the first time just three years ago.
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