The worlds largest marine protected area (MPA) came into force on November 1st in the British territorial waters of the Chagos Archipelago.  The Chagos reserve is substantial and covers an area of 544,000 square kilometres – twice the size of Britain. In general, ecologists and conservationists have welcomed this move since the Chagos waters are home to one of the world's largest coral reefs, a habitat for more than 1,200 species of coral and fish (actually, Chagos contains 49% of the 'Least Threatened' reefs in the Indian Ocean, all within one jurisdiction!) and many charismatic species such as the critically endangered hawksbill turtle. Its creation comes at a time when alarming reports highlight how the marine life in the waters of the Chagos Archipelago has been hit hard by overfishing. For example, the Zoological Society of London estimates that, over the past five years, around 60,000 sharks, an equivalent number of rays and many other species have been caught there as "by-catch" – as an accidental adjunct to commercial fishing for tuna, for example.

However this new sanctuary, serves to underline how catastrophically the international community has fallen short of goals set almost a decade ago to protect marine life. In 2002, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development made a commitment to protect 10 per cent of the world's oceans by 2012. Today, with only 15 months to go, it is estimated that just 1.17 per cent of the world's oceans are under some form of protection, and a mere 0.08 per cent classified as "no-take" zones. At the recent UN conference on biodiversity held in Nagoya, Japan, government officials put the 2012 deadline back to 2020. Marine experts warned that it is scandalous that the original deadline will not be met, and said the 10 per cent target falls far short of what is needed. A third of ocean waters need protection to give species a fighting chance of survival, they said.

The creation of this huge MPA raises many other questions, which have received less attention in the media. For example, while reserves of this size are welcome, and can definitely help to re-build marine food webs they are not a cure-all against the decline of marine ecosystems around the world. For instance, they provide no direct protection from pollution or the impacts of climate change and even the most successful and intensively managed marine parks are vulnerable to degradation outside their boundaries. What really needs to be brought up on the negotiating tables are holistic approaches that combine the creation of MPAS with serious efforts to tackle coastal pollution, climate change and overfishing outside the boundaries of MPAs.

Some voices have also been raised concerning the treatment of the original inhabitants of the islands, the “Chagossians”, whom where expelled from their homes 40 years ago in order to provide the United States with a secure base (Diego Garcia) in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The Chagossians have been positive to conservation measures being taken around Chagos, but have been completely cut-off from the process of creating this MPA. In fact, they are currently appealing to the European Court of Human Rights against previous legal measures taken by the British government to prevent their return back to Chagos (some prominent journalists are also suggesting that the MPA creation is also part of a strategy to further dig the defense against the return of the Chagossians). Seeing that many reserves have failed to prevent ongoing damage to marine ecosystems because of a lack of support from impoverished local people, poor compliance and inadequate resources for education and enforcement, this part of the Chagos story is especially worrying. If Chagossians would be ruled eligible for return, the serious damage done to their trust for ecologists and conservationists could jeopardize the future of the whole MPA.