Easter Island Animals
Isle of Easter AnimalsWhat makes isolated Easter Island the perfect place for a marine reserve?
As for the ordinary man, ask him what he knows about Easter Island, and these huge sculptures with their obscure terms would probably be at the top of the heap. This is the result of their expertise for many, as Easter Island is a very small and extraordinarily secluded island in the east Pacific.
Easter Island is managed by Chile 3,600 km eastward and about 2,000 km from its closest populated neighbor, the island of Pitcairn (a British Atlantic area), and is indeed one of the most remote populated places on earth. Besides sculptures and unapproachability, the other remarkable thing about Easter Island is the environmental catastrophe that plunged local societies into war and hunger a few hundred years ago.
We' re still not sure what exactly it was, but the classical and still compelling tale is that the Easter Islanders have cut down all their tree trunks to put up sculptures. In a place encircled by a sea without a trace, the Easter Island tales are firmly tied to rock. It is planned to transform a large area of the adjacent oceans into a sea conservation area.
Conservatives who have fought for conservation for years, such as the Global Ocean Legacy Programme of the Pew Environment Group, are hoping that the reserve will be very large and that it will be implemented by the Chilean Marines. When the present plan is implemented, Easter Island will become one of the largest sea conservation areas in the word, banning non-islander 200 nautical leagues of commercial fisheries in all direction.
Your fishermen's federation is supporting the naval fleet because it offers them some degree of shelter from unlawful competitors - island residents can still go angling up to 50 nautical mile. What is so unique about these oceans? Its remoteness has so far saved its oceans from the devastation of the world's long-distance fleet.
Insularity also means that Easter Island, though not as species-rich as the western Pacific, has a host of ocean dwellers that can't be found anywhere else in the whole wide globe, among them colorful angel fish, recluse crayfish, small starfishes and a sandal crayfish. When Easter Island water receives the conservation they merit, this place will join a rising number of very large marine reserves being established today.
In 2010, the United Kingdom has built 640,000 km2 of shelters around its Indian Ocean territory, the Chagos, and promises an even bigger area around Pitcairn, the "neighbour" of Easter Island. The New Zealand has just declared a 620,000 km2 reserve around the Kermadec Islands, half way between Auckland and Tonga. Returning to Britain, the British conservatives have undertaken to establish a "blue belt" to protect all 14 areas oversee.
With these pleasing trends, we could still lag behind the 10% cover of maritime reserves contracted by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by 2020. Finally there is good tidings for the contested seas.