THE MALDIVES: 1ER COUNTRY TO BECOME MARINE RESERVE

The President of the Maldives Islands, Mohamed Waheed, announced on Wednesday June 20 in Rio de Janeiro that his country, one of the most directly affected by global warming, would become within five years “the first country to become a marine reserve [... ], the largest in the world ”.
In front of the 191 UN member countries meeting in Rio, he cited the progress made by his country in terms of sustainable development, and recalled that his country had established this year “the first Unesco biosphere” in one of its 20 atolls.

President Waheed announced that his country would, within a “short period”, which could be “five years”, “the first country to become a marine reserve”, which would constitute the “largest marine reserve in the world”. In this reserve, fishing would be "sustainable and ecological, excluding techniques destroying the biosphere", he said in reference to industrial fishing. “The Maldives is already a sanctuary for sharks, turtles and many species of fish from the Indian Ocean,” he said. Trade in these species is prohibited in the Maldives. ”

Sue Lieberman, deputy director of the American NGO Pew Environment Group, considered that this announcement was “very significant” and constituted “a great commitment”, the status of a marine reserve being much more restrictive than that of an area. protected.

“Technically, there can be no extraction in a marine reserve, there is no industrial fishing, no mine,” she told AFP. It is the sea equivalent of a national park. ” According to her, the president of the Maldives seemed to involve the entire exclusive economic zone of the archipelago, or 200 nautical miles around the coasts. “The Maldives are a small set of islands, but it's a big country when you count their ocean,” she added.

The announcement comes a week after Australia announced it would create the world's largest network of marine nature reserves, putting strict limits on fishing and off-shore oil and gas exploration on 3,1, 2 million kmXNUMX, or more than a third of Australian territorial waters.