[Coral-List] Chagos Islands - Law of the Sea ?

[Richard Dunne]

We need to take positive action to ensure that Chagos flourishes under 
Mauritian sovereignty and to encourage a replacement for the UK's MPA 
which no longer exists.

Mauritius has already made it clear that it wishes to do so and in 
December 2019 wrote to a number of conservation bodies who have 
previously supported and/or financed work in the Chagos. These included 
the Pew Foundation, Bertarelli Foundation, Blue Marine, Chagos 
Conservation Trust, the Linnean Society of London, Marine Conservation 
Society, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Royal Botanic 
Gardens Kew and the Zoological Society of London. The letters contained 
the following common statement and request:

         "The Republic of Mauritius is equally firmly committed to the
    promotion of activities which can lead to the conservation and
    sustainable use of our marine resources in a manner consistent with
    the preservation and protection of our biodiversity.

         One such area where the Republic of Mauritius would like to put
    in place a protection regime is the waters around the Chagos
    Archipelago.

         The Government of the Republic of Mauritius invites your
    collaboration and cooperation in its effort to create its own MPA in
    the Chagos Archipelago, ensuring the long-term and sustainable
    conservation of the marine environment, and would welcome the
    support of the Bertarelli Foundation. To this end, we would wish to
    have preliminary discussions with you ahead of a meeting which we
    are proposing to organize in the middle of April 2020 with relevant
    organizations involved with marine protection. I would be grateful
    if you could let me know when you might be available for such
    discussions. Any correspondence addressed to me can be sent to .... ."


The replies from the organisations were disappointing to say the least, 
some did not reply at all, others evaded ("we are no longer working 
there") and one outright declined to participate. Whilst there may have 
been some rationale for the positions adopted at the time on the basis 
that there still seemed to have been an ongoing sovereignty dispute by 
the UK, this no longer holds.

Whilst Mauritius can renew these requests, the ball is very much in the 
court of these and other organisations to reach out now and to agree to 
help Mauritius achieve its goals. If members of these organisations 
and/or their trustees/governing councils are reading this post then I 
would invite you to do so. For the good of nature these organisations 
must bury their past excuses, acknowledge that sovereignty over the 
Chagos Islands lies with Mauritius and get on with the vital job of 
protecting this area.

More importantly the UK must also now stop obstructing Mauritius from 
accessing the islands. If it continues to do so then its legacy will not 
be one of environmental protection but of cynical manipulation and 
reveal once more what has always been and remains its true purpose for 
hanging on to the Chagos since 1965, namely to retain the islands as a 
military fortress initially at the behest of the USA. Its human rights 
record from what it has done is already in tatters, its environmental 
record will shortly follow that path if it does not act to fulfil its 
moral and legal obligations.

Richard Dunne
Barnard Castle, Co Durham, UK
Chagos Facts Website
https://sites.google.com/site/thechagosarchipelagofacts/home
> On 02/02/2021 10:50, Mark Spalding via Coral-List wrote:
>> The Chagos Archipelago is receiving considerable attention, due to recent
>> and ongoing political shifts. I would just like to remind listers just how
>> important this Archipelago is to the planet. Here are five atolls, several
>> banks, and 50 coral islands, most of which were never inhabited, and many of
>> which are remarkable sanctuaries for plant and bird-life. Here are 1.5% of
>> the world's coral reefs, protected by both their remote location and as a
>> protected area, with no significant fishing for the past 10 years and very
>> little before that. Here an incredible programme of research is revealing
>> vast amounts of new information about the natural functioning of coral reef
>> and pelagic ecosystems (see Hays, +73 others.2020. A review of a decade of
>> lessons from one of the world's largest MPAs: conservation gains and key
>> challenges. Marine Biology 167:159).
>>
>> It is the last coral reef wilderness in the Indian Ocean, and one of the
>> last in the world. The human history of this archipelago cannot be ignored,
>> but we would be failing ourselves and humanity if we did not continue to
>> call for its sound management and continued conservation, under any
>> jurisdiction. I am glad that Richard's first priority is to focus on its
>> protected status, come what may, and I might add the continuance of the
>> remarkable research programme that has developed and which is informing
>> coral reef science and management world-wide. Any and all of us with any
>> interest in coral reefs need to stress this importance to any jurisdiction
>> that holds responsibility for this remarkable place.
>>
>>   
>>
>> (written in a personal capacity)
>>
>>   
>>
>> Mark Spalding, PhD
>>
>> Honorary Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
>>
>> Office: Siena, ITALY
>>
>>
>>
>>   
>>
>>   
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list