Skip to footer

Palau closes off fishing in nearly all of its coastal waters

The Pacific island nation's newly established marine sanctuary will be the 6th largest protected area of ocean in the world. 

|
Itsuo Inouye/AP/File
The Palau Capital building is seen in Melekeok, June 20, 200.. On Wednesday, the president of this tiny Pacific island nation signed a law to make almost all its coastal waters a marine sanctuary.
  • By Michael Holtz Staff writer

The tiny Pacific nation of Palau plans to make almost all of its coastal waters a marine sanctuary amid growing concern over the lack of ocean conservation efforts worldwide.

Last Thursday, lawmakers passed the Palau National Marine Sanctuary Act that designates 80 percent of the nation's maritime territory as a fully protected marine reserve. Palau's president signed the legislation on Wednesday.

“A small island nation can have a big impact on the ocean,” President Tommy Remengesau said ahead of a ceremony on Wednesday to officially sign off on the reserve, according to Agence France-Presse.

“Island communities have been among the hardest hit by the threats facing the ocean," he added. "Creating this sanctuary is a bold move that the people of Palau recognize as essential to our survival.

The law prohibits all extractive activities, such as fishing or mining, from taking place inside the sanctuary. At 193,000 square miles, the sanctuary is slightly larger than California, making it the sixth-largest fully protected marine area in the world.

The law also aims to curb illegal fishing by tightening rules for vessels passing through the area. Palau’s government set fire to several vessels caught fishing illegally earlier this year to emphasize its commitment to protecting its seas.

The remaining 20 percent of Palau's waters will be kept as domestic fishing zones for local fishermen and small-scale commercial fisheries with limited exports.

Ocean conservation has received heightened attention this year as researchers have raised concern over the risks associated with climate change, overfishing, and other threats.

A recent study conducted by two researchers at the University of British Columbia found that only four percent of the world’s oceans are protected. The study concludes that major steps are needed to cover even the most basic global targets to protect marine wildlife, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

The Sea Around Us, an international research group, set a goal of 10 percent by 2020, despite it having taken decades for countries to reach the current level of four percent.

But momentum has slowly started to build. New commitments made this year from countries including Britain, New Zealand, and Chile would protect more than 2.5 million square kilometers of the world's ocean.

This report includes material from The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Palau closes off fishing in nearly all of its coastal waters
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/1029/Palau-closes-off-fishing-in-nearly-all-of-its-coastal-waters
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe