[Coral-List] Bad news for coral reefs

[Anne Sheppard]

It is a tragedy that the UN court has judged the creation of the British Indian Ocean Territory Marine Protected Area to have been illegal.


The tragedy is for all of us, who will lose the benefits of this rich and protected place and especially for the people of the Indian Ocean rim.

 

The only change that this ruling will have is that it will allow Mauritius, which has an appalling marine environmental record and has seriously degraded its own reef fishery, to come into the territory and carry out so called 'artisanal' fishing.  This involves little boats and line certainly, but feeds a large nearby mother ship as it has in the past.  It may also allow the international industrial fishery into the territory to plunder this rich and now no longer fully protected area.  Any who might crow about this being a success story must be anti conservation and pro the pillage of some of the best reefs in the Indian Ocean.

 

So politics wins over common sense and the needs of the ocean.

 

A sad day for coral reefs.



best wishes
 
Anne Sheppard