The Republic of the Marshall Islands has announced the country’s first marine sanctuary. It will protect the waters around two of its uninhabited atolls, Bikar and Bokak, stretching 18,500 square miles. The area – bigger than the whole of Switzerland – will be fully protected from fishing.
“Bikar and Bokak is like a glimpse of a world before people arrived. It’s flourishing with life,” says Whitney Goodell, marine ecologist at National Geographic Pristine Seas.
“From bountiful schools of fish in the reefs, to the bird-filled skies, to otherworldly views of the seafloor where deep-sea sharks swarmed our cameras.”
The remote islands are biodiversity hotspots. As well as being home to the endangered bristle-thighed curlew and the Marshall Islands’ largest green turtle nesting colony, these atolls are “a refuge for reef sharks and the region’s only known aggregation of bumphead parrotfish, a large herbivore vital to coral reef health,” says Juan Mayorga, marine scientist at Pristine Seas. These waters also have the highest coral cover and giant clam densities in the central and western Pacific Ocean.
These protections are part of the country’s conservation framework: Reimaanlok. Meaning 'look towards the future,’ this approach bases its actions on traditional knowledge and cultural insights – coastal communities design their own plans for how to use the islands’ natural resources in a sustainable way.
“The ocean as our ancestors knew it is vanishing,” says Dr. Hilda Heine, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. “Without sustainable ocean ecosystems, our economy, stability and cultural identity will collapse. The only way to continue benefiting from the ocean’s treasures is to protect it.”
The Reimaanlok was informed by a scientific report created as a result of a National Geographic Pristine Seas and MIMRA expedition to Bikar and Bokak in 2023. The researchers spent around 643 hours underwater on 452 dives gathering information about these pristine ecosystems. They even explored the deep sea, taking a submersible down to 2,340 metres below the surface.
“Bikar and Bokak’s coral reefs are a time machine, like diving in the ocean of 1,000 years ago,” says Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and founder of Pristine Seas. "In these remote atolls, we saw the healthiest coral, giant clam, and reef fish populations in the central and western Pacific. They are our best baselines for what the ocean could look like if we truly let it be.”
The haven created within marine protected areas (MPAs) has a ripple effect: boosting fish populations in surrounding ecosystems, which provides food and livelihoods for local communities. "Safeguarding areas of high biodiversity delivers benefits to local communities who rely on fish and other aspects of a healthy environment,” says Glen Joseph, Director of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority (MIMRA). "Our future depends on protecting our ocean.”
Heine adds: “I am proud of our country’s first marine sanctuary, which certainly won’t be its last.”
Main image: Marshall Islands marine sanctuary/National Geographic Pristine Seas
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