Pacific Islands’ marine reserve: Safe haven for depleted tuna and new holiday spot

On October 22, Palau’s parliament unanimously approved a law that over five years will phase out all commercial fishing in 80 per cent of Palau’s waters, dominated by foreign tuna fleets from Taiwan and Japan. The no-take zone, at over half a million square kilometers, will be the size of California or Spain.

Scientists predicted Palau’s approach will work. A recent study found that in the Western and Central Pacific, about 10 per cent of the Bigeye, the most depleted and valuable tuna, spend their whole life inside an area the size of the Palau sanctuary, with the rest roaming outside it and getting caught.

Daniel Pauly, a prominent fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said research that will be published next year shows that the sanctuary will be big enough to make a difference.

“We found that the offspring of the ‘lazy’ fishes that spend their whole life inside a sanctuary the size of Palau’s will have a genetic advantage over the ones that swim outside of it and get killed,” he said in an interview. “That means that over the next decades, we expect the density of fish inside the sanctuary to increase noticeably.”

And there will be plenty of people to do the noticing: Palau is a top 10 global diving destination with perhaps 90,000 divers a year who form the backbone of a tourism industry that is expected to reach 180,000 visitors this year.

The creation of the Palau National Marine Sanctuary has drawn praise from global conservation organizations.

Joshua Reichert, Executive Vice President of the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C., noted that no other leader has protected such a large proportion of his country’s waters. “President Remengesau stands out,” he said. Pew helped design the sanctuary and build grassroots support for it.

Source: http://www.eco-business.com/news/pacific-islands-marine-reserve-safe-haven-for-depleted-tuna-and-new-holiday-spot/