DiCaprio deal creates giant marine reserve
The Seychelles have created a vast marine reserve about the size of Britain under an innovative debt relief scheme backed by Leonardo DiCaprio.
In exchange for getting some of its national debt paid off, the island nation has agreed to protect 210,000 sq km (81,000 sq miles) of ocean, limiting tourism, oil drilling and commercial fishing to protect dolphins, turtles and other marine life.
Under the deal the Nature Conservancy, a US group backed by philanthropists including DiCaprio, buys $21 million of Seychelles sovereign debt so that its government can redirect its payments to the protection of its oceans.
The Indian Ocean archipelago of fewer than 100,000 people relies on tourism and fishing for revenue but in recent years oil and gas companies have been exploring its turquoise waters, home to at-risk dugongs, turtles and tuna.
Last week the government gave details of two protection zones. It will reveal details on another 200,000 sq km at a later date.
Didier Dogley, the Seychelles’ environment minister, said that not only did the country’s marine territory employ 43 per cent of its workforce in tourism or fishing, it also brought responsibility. "Our approach is ambitious," he said). "By planning properly to protect our environment, we can be sure we are also protecting our people and their livelihoods."
One of the new Seychelles marine reserves will cover the remote Aldabra Group of islands to the north of Madagascar, which are home to spinner dolphins, lemon and tiger sharks, the dugong and 100,000 critically endangered turtles. The second area is closer to the largest island of Mahe and covers the tourist paradise of Desroches.
Other areas earmarked for reserves are closer to the mainland and could bring protests from tourism operators and commercial fishermen. They will also protect spawning areas for the tuna that are worth dollars 300 million to the economy and allow corals to regrow.
The initiative has attracted interest from other island nations and it is hoped it could provide a template to preserve the world’s marine environment, which is increasingly under threat from rising temperatures, pollution and exploitation of its resources.
Safeguarding the seas has become a hot topic: the actor Javier Bardem will this year appear in a film, Sanctuary, that documents the world’s largest protected area in the Antarctic Ocean.
The United Nations has set up a "seabed authority" to police marine mining and Sir Richard Branson has joined the film-maker and philanthropist James Cameron and the French oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau to form the Ocean Elders group.