LIKE many British people, I have always been vaguely aware of the existence of a place called the Pitcairn Islands. I would have struggled to point to it on a map, let alone name which ocean it is in. But I have just been there. It is a British overseas territory in the South Pacific, a four-day sail from Tahiti and over 500 kilometres from the nearest inhabited island – and the epic journey was worth it.
Pitcairn’s history is captivating. It was the final destination in 1790 of some of the Bounty mutineers and most of its inhabitants today are direct descendants of those men and Tahitian women. But I didn’t go there for that sort of bounty. The islands are at the centre of one of the world’s biggest, most successful marine protected areas (MPAs), an oceanic nature reserve three-and-a-half times the size of the UK and a glittering example of how to do ocean conservation well (in a clamshell, stop outsiders from taking all the fish).
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There are four islands, though only the one known as Pitcairn is inhabited. The territory’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which runs for 200 nautical miles in every direction (except where it butts up against French Polynesia), covers some 842,000 square kilometres. Most is highly protected. I don’t often praise the UK government on green issues, but hats off to it for recognising the biodiversity value of this remote tract of ocean and protecting it with vigour. Hats off to the islanders, too, for embracing the project.
Thanks to places like Pitcairn, the UK is one of only two countries to have exceeded the global target of protecting 30 per cent of its ocean surface. For pub quiz enthusiasts, the other is Palau, which has protected 78 per cent of its waters. The 30 per cent target is scientifically validated as the bare minimum required to halt the catastrophic loss of biodiversity. At the latest talks on biological diversity, in Canada in 2022, the world signed it off as a commitment to be met by the end of the decade, both on land and sea. This “30 by 30” goal has been described as biodiversity’s equivalent to the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Protecting 30 per cent of the ocean is even more difficult than protecting a similar area on land. I travelled to Pitcairn as a guest of the Royal Navy. We sailed on the , one of its greenest ships. At some point, we crossed from the EEZ of French Polynesia into that of Pitcairn, but there is no sign to indicate it. Fish, turtles and whales can freely leave and re-enter an MPA, which makes protecting marine species more difficult than terrestrial ones. Even so, Pitcairn’s MPA is among the most effective in the world.
The UK also has vast areas of highly protected waters around two other overseas territories: South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. , is establishing an MPA. Credit must also go to the UK for designating the 638,097 km2 EEZ of the British Indian Ocean Territory (aka the Chagos Archipelago) an MPA. That said, the UN General Assembly and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea have recognised the territory as belonging to Mauritius.
It is easy to be cynical about the UK’s success, as protecting remote overseas territories is easier than doing it at home. Large areas of the UK’s domestic EEZ are designated as MPAs, but aren’t strongly protected. One scientist I spoke to described them as “a fraud”.
However, not all former colonial powers with vast oceanic territories have done the same as the UK. France has roughly twice the overseas EEZs of the UK, but only tiny scraps are fully protected. The uninhabited French Southern and Antarctic Territories alone cover nearly 2 million km2; only 6.3 per cent is fully protected. French Polynesia also has a huge EEZ covering 4,766,691 km2, none of which is .
Admittedly, populated island nations rely on their seas for food and economic development. The Pitcairn islanders are allowed to fish for their own needs and to sell to passing cruise ships. If Bermuda establishes its MPA, 80 per cent of the EEZ will be open to fishing. But still, most island nations and overseas territories could and must do better.
There is also the small matter that protecting 30 per cent of the oceans will require vast areas of international waters to be included; EEZs only cover about a third of the ocean and there is no way they can all be turned into MPAs. Facilitating international MPAs is a key feature of last year’s High Seas Treaty, but so far only have ratified it.
I left Pitcairn with huge respect for the islanders’ commitment to preserving their precious ocean ecosystem, but also frustration that so many similar opportunities aren’t being taken. The end of the decade is less than seven years away; 30 by 30 already looks dead in the water.
Graham’s week
What I’m reading
Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside shipping, the invisible industry that brings you 90% of everything by Rose George.
What I’m watching
I missed a lot of TV on my travels so am furiously catching up.
What I’m working on
Resetting my bamboozled body clock.
Graham Lawton is a staff writer at żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ and author of Mustn’t Grumble: The surprising science of everyday ailments. You can follow him @grahamlawton
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