Very few of us have had the opportunity to travel to the Cook Islands, but that might soon change, as this little island nation has major plans in the works to create a new Marine Protected Area in which sustainable tourism will be encouraged. Though the nation's 15 small islands cover a total area of just 240 square kilometers, the Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,800,000 square kilometers. In all, the islands and their territory spread over 2.2 million square kilometers of ocean. Together with adjoining nations, the Cook Islands government is creating a 40 million square kilometer marine protected zone - all told, it will cover an area larger than the surface of the moon. Here, we'll take a closer look at what a small group of Pacific Islands nations are doing to help reverse ocean destruction.
Sustainability as the Focus
In an unprecedented effort to preserve and protect the oceans, the new marine park will allow no unsustainable activities. Sixteen nations, including Australia and New Zealand, are joining forces and exclusive economic zones covering about ten percent of the world's oceans, to create the Pacific Oceanscape. The largest government-endorsed initiative ever to impact ocean territories, this framework for integrated conservation management is meant to address problems caused by climate change, and to foster sustainable development while protecting the ocean environment. The initiative covers ocean health, governance, and security, as well as sustainable resource management, all with an eye toward facilitating the cooperation which will be required to support conservation efforts within this massive ecosystem.
The Cook Islands' specific contribution to the Oceanscape project is the creation of the world's largest marine park, which will cover almost 1.1 million square kilometers. In case you're wondering, that's an area larger than France and Germany combined. The marine park will be zoned for a number of different uses, including tourism and fishing. It will be located next to Australia's newly protected Coral Sea area, which covers an additional 1 million square kilometers. Nearby, New Caledonia is enacting a new marine protected area of 24,000 square kilometers, which is approximately half the size of India, and which includes protection for the world's largest lagoon.
While these ocean environments are under intense pressure, partly due to the fact that the region is home to about 60 percent of the world's tuna stocks, the people who live here maintain strong cultural connections with the ocean, and see preserving it as a sacred duty. They don't view the oceans as a source for resources to be exploited - instead, they see themselves as being part of the oceans. Now, not only do the people of the Cook Islands and other nearby nations wish to preserve the Pacific for their own future generations, they wish to make a commitment to contributing to the well-being of humanity.
In all, the new Marine Protected Area is to stretch from the Marshall Islands in the north, nearly to New Zealand in the south. This is the largest conservation initiative ever to be enacted, and it's great news for all of us - whales, fish, seabirds and other creatures, and people, too.