Marine Protected Areas increase 10-fold in a decade

 

 
The reserve around the Chagos islands is the world's largest, protecting a notoriously rich ecosystem.

A 10-fold rise in Marine Protected Areas has been recorded over a decade.

A report to a in Hyderabad reports that more than 8.3 million sq km - 2.3% of the global ocean area - is now protected.

The percentage is small but the rapid growth in recent times leads to hope

that the world will hit its target of 10% protected by 2020.

This would have looked most unlikely prospect just a few years ago.

The aspiration was agreed by the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2004

with a target date of 2012. Progress was so slow at first that the target was

slipped to 2020 - with some researchers forecasting it would not be reached

until mid-century.

But recently there have been huge additions - like Marine Protected Areas

(MPAs) in the UK-controlled Chagos archipelago and US-controlled uninhabited

territories in the mid-Pacific.

The Cook Islands recently announced a 1.1 million sq km MPA - that is four

times the area of the UK land mass. New Caledonia's is even bigger - 1.4 million

sq km.

Australia has added a further 2.7 million sq km to its listing of the Great