CHILE PROTECTS 12 PERCENT OF ITS WATERS

The newly declared Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park covers an area of 300,035 square kilometres, protecting 12 percent of Chile’s marine surface territory. What’s more, the new park will make up around eight percent of all marine protected areas that have been declared as no-take zones, i.e., off limits to fishing.

The Chilean Minister of the Environment stated, “72 percent of the species that live there are found nowhere else in the world; fish biomass is the highest of all the islands of the Pacific with 2.5 tons per hectare.”

As with most marine protected areas, burgeoning fish stocks in the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park will undoubtedly spill out, and help the recovery of other areas in the South Pacific that are currently overexploited or depleted.