Monday's Photo: Kiribati Coral
What better way to start the week that with a celebration of a great victory: the establishment of the world's largest marine reserve by the Pacific island nation of Kiribati.
The new Phoenix Islands Protected Area covers almost 160,000 square miles near the equator between the Hawaiian Islands and Fiji.
Our colleagues at the New England Aquarium, along with Conservation International, are helping Kiribati develop management and funding plans for the reserve.
The waters and islands in the protected area are home to more than 120 species of coral and 520 species of fish, some new to science. The area also has some of the most important sea bird nesting sites in the Pacific, large fish populations and sea turtles, the aquarium and Conservation International say.
"The new boundary includes extensive seamount and deep-sea habitat, tuna spawning grounds and as yet unsurveyed submerged reef systems," Greg Stone, the New England Aquarium's vice-president of global marine programs, told the Reuters news agency.
If you want to see more, National Geographic has a great website devoted to the Phoenix Islands, with photos like this one, and other resources.
It's a wonderful day when any new protected area is created, especially one larger than either the Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Monument (largest in U.S. waters) or the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Australia.
Nice picture of the Kiribati Coral.
Posted by: 2Tangs | August 10, 2008 at 07:54 AM