Tristan da Cunha becomes leader in ocean conservation

Excerpt from globallandscapeforum.org

Rising from the Atlantic swells, halfway between South Africa and Argentina, the wind-lashed archipelago of Tristan da Cunha is a place few have heard of, and even fewer have managed to visit.

Some 260 people call this, the world’s most remote island community, home. Most are descended from British soldiers garrisoned on Tristan’s main island in 1816 to prevent it being used as a base for the French to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from exile on St. Helena.

Now, this community is on a different mission: designating its waters as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Tristan da Cunha’s 12-member Island Council is currently working to ratify the commitment it made last November to ban harmful activities like bottom-trawling fishing and deep-water mining from its Exclusive Economic Zone. At almost 700,000 square kilometers, the protected area will cover 91 percent of the massive swath of ocean under Tristan’s jurisdiction, making it the largest ‘no-take’ zone in the Atlantic as well as a significant benefactor to marine conservation.