The Green Room
The world's largest marine protected area has now been made legally binding by the signing into law the act creating it.
According to Radio New Zealand International, Kiribati(said Kiribas) President Anote Tong announced the motion on 5 June:
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=46986
Check out the Phoenix Islands MPA web site for more information:
http://phoenixislands.org/index.php
Phoenix_Islands_Protected_Area.jpg (75 KB, 1 downloads) 2 years old Wow - that's fantastic, the area almost looks as big as the North island. I heard that George Bush set about creating some rather large marine reserves in the Pacific just before he left office -
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12916869
I'd love to see all these marine reserves on one big map. Kirstie, do you know if such as map exists?
Yup - on January 6th 2009 President Bush announced 3 new marine Protected Areas (MPAs) - declaring them National Monuments.
1. Marianas Trench National Monument - includes 3 componments - reefs and islands; the trench itself; undersea volcanoes and thermal vents
2.The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monuments protects the pristine coral reef ecosystems around Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston Atoll, and Wake Island – the site of a pivotal battle in World War II and an important military base today.
3. The Rose Atoll Marine National Monument protects the pristine coral reef ecosystem around a remote part of American Samoa.
Combined these cover 195,274 km2 - a huge area in a single MPA declaration, but still much smaller than Kiribati's 410,500km2 Phoenix Islands MPA.
Don't have any comprehensive maps - though am sure there will be some out there. One very basic US one I have is posted here and one of the Mariana Trench NM too.....
mariana_map_va.jpg (42.8 KB, 0 downloads) 2 years old US_National_Marine_Sanctuary_global_sy.gif (19.1 KB, 0 downloads) 2 years old The really big one you see on the map is by Hawaii - the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
See here for more information:
Papahanaumokuakea_MNM.png (45.8 KB, 0 downloads) 2 years old Kirstie, you're a veritable minefield of marine information....Everything at your finger-tips. Very impressive!! Didn't I tell you we can always rely on the diving faternity/!!
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