On April 1^st – the Chagos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean were designated the words largest marine reserve by the UK government. At 544000 sq kilometres it is about twice the size of New Zealand’s total land area.

The well known environmentalist President George Bush – in his final few days in January 2009 office managed to designate 3 new marine reserves in the Pacific totalling 505000 sq kilometers. This was in addition to the Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument established in 2006 off the north west of Hawaii.

So what can New Zealand do? The Pew group is suggesting that the 200 nautical mile radius EEZ (economic exclusion zone) around the Kermadec Islands becomes an Ocean Sanctuary.

Located about 1000 km (621 miles) northeast of New Zealand, the islands form a small chain covering a distance of 250 km (155 miles). Five large islands—Raoul, Macauley, Curtis, Cheeseman, L’Esperance Rock—and a number of smaller islets and exposed rocks comprise the Kermadec group.

Fishing is already fairly tightly controlled in the EEZ area – though how effective an Orion plane is at patrolling this vast area is debatable, DOC already have a presence in the area – you can only land on the islands with a permit and they have been clearing rats and kiore from the islands and the local bird life is thriving.

The Kermadecs are volcanic and there are lots of underwater thermal vents which are rich in minerals (gold and silver) which the mining focussed NZ Government might have its eyes on. The water is very deep and so extraction would be costly and almost certainly uneconomic for the foreseeable future.

So lets get this area protected now. It probably wouldn’t cost the government much more than it already spends on Orions and DOC to maintain the sanctuary, it could lose some revenue from selling fishing quotas but I have been told only 4 boats operated in the area last year and took a catch worth $90,000 – not a great deal.

The plus side for New Zealand is it can only enhance the 100% pure marketing message and the National Government could do with a bit of good PR on the environment front.

So lobby your MPs! Point them to this article

There is a lot more information on this at the Pew Environment Groups Global Ocean Legacy website http://www.globaloceanlegacy.org/ or for information on the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary got to http://www.globaloceanlegacy.org/kermadec/index.html .

Let’s make this happen – soon.