freediver
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http://news.smh.com.au/kiribati-creates-huge-marine-reserve/20080214-1sb1.html
The Pacific island nation of Kiribati has created the world's largest protected marine reserve, conservation groups say.
They describe it as a California-sized wilderness, brimming with reefs, fish and birds.
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, covering 410,500 square kilometres, is one of the planet's last intact coral archipelagos and is threatened by over-fishing and climate change, the groups say.
It lies near the equator about half way between Fiji and Hawaii.
The protected zone is more than double the area Kiribati originally pledged to protect at a UN biodiversity conference in Brazil in 2006.
"The new boundary includes extensive seamount and deep-sea habitat, tuna spawning grounds and as yet unsurveyed submerged reef systems," said Greg Stone, the aquarium's vice-president of global marine programs.
Kiribati says it needs more money to pay for surveillance against illegal fishing as well as develop a trust fund, possibly as large as $US100 million ($A111.6 million), to pay for running costs and compensate the government for lost income from commercial fishing licences.
"A major part of the operational cost is the surveillance and we have a patrol boat donated by Australia," Tebwe Ietaake, secretary of Kiribati's environment ministry, told Reuters.
"We are also looking at the cooperation of Australia and New Zealand in aerial surveillance flights over the region," he said.
He said the government would still allow subsistence fishing by local fishing communities.
The expanded Phoenix islands reserve is closely matched in size to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, the single largest conservation area under the US flag, covering 357,000 square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean.
Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park covers about 345,000 square kilometres, and extends more than 2,300km along the Queensland coast.
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