New Caledonia has launched an ambitious initiative to protect a vast area of ocean from threats posed by expected economic development
New Caledonia, the French territory in the south-west Pacific, has set up the world’s biggest marine protected area (MPA). Caledonia’s government and Conservation International (CI) are developing a three-year management plan for the MPA, seeking to sustainably deliver environmental, economic and human development.
The MPA seeks to protect an area three times the size of Germany, some 1.3m sq km, featuring one of Earth’s largest reefs, an area of significant marine biodiversity.
The area is presently relatively unthreatened, but the MPA’s three-year project is being launched now to intercept future impacts on New Caledonia from ship traffic from Australia, and deep-sea oil and mining exploration. Exact rules on achieving this protection are being explored.
“Currently, one of the island’s main economic activities is nickel mining; New Caledonia contains about one-fourth of the planet’s known nickel resources,” says CI-New Caledonia programme director Jean-Christophe Lefeuvre. Developing such mineral resources requires the construction of port infrastructure and new shipping traffic, both of which can damage the marine environment.
Delicate balance
Given all this, sustainably managing nickel will be challenging, and will probably prove a key battleground in determining the true teeth of the proposals to combat additional extractive activities.
“One of the main risks associated with effective management will be how to compensate the loss of income from extractive activities, such as fishing or mining,” says Luca Budello, director at Shallow Waters, a social enterprise that develops community fisheries and MPAs.
Often, MPAs completely ban extractive activities. New Caledonia’s management committee includes representatives of the local Kanak people, for whom nickel represents a key financial opportunity. Certain areas of the MPA will be open to economic activities such as fishing, but the future for nickel and its associated infrastructure remains undecided.
“It is fantastic that such a huge area covering a highly biodiverse ecosystem has been given protected status and most importantly is set out to be managed with a multi-use approach, as often halting all economic activity in an area can do more harm than good if there was activity in the area prior to its protected status,” says Sarah Wilson, Shallow Waters co-founder.
“Enforcement will be an issue due to the sheer size, but if they can hit a balance between that and effective fishing management [for example] then having such a large area protected will hopefully allow for fast recovery for fish stocks.”
Budello argues that if proven effective in these terms, Caledonia’s example could impact on wider sustainable development. He says small island nations have disproportionate influence. Collectively, Pacific island nations hold the exclusive economic rights for 10% of the world’s ocean surface.
“The creation of New Caledonia’s [MPA] follows the establishment of Kiribati’s Phoenix Island Protected Area in 2006 and Cook Islands Marine Park in 2011,” he says.
More widely, New Caledonia’s example could also influence trends within Oceanscape, the world’s largest integrated conservation and ocean management initiative already covering nearly 40m sq km of the Pacific.
Scientific data exists proving the past efficacy of other MPAs. Success at the Chagos Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean shows that large marine networks protecting coral habitats can dramatically increase overall ecosystem resilience, which can benefit sustainable fisheries, for example.
Additional studies from global coral reefs report increases in reef resilience, spawning stocks of commercially valuable species, reef biomass and other benefits as a result of MPAs.
extractive activities marine conservation New Caledonia