The Next Great MPA: Cook Islands
On 7 September, Prime Minister Henry Puna of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific made a big announcement. He stated that in 2012 his country will designate a marine protected area across roughly half its exclusive economic zone. That will be a 1 million-km2 marine protected area.
To put that in perspective: The Cook Islands MPA will be nearly twice the size of the 544,000-km2 Chagos Marine Protected Area in the Indian Ocean, which was widely considered the world’s largest MPA upon its designation just last year (MPA News 11:6). It will be almost three times the size of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (344,400-km2), which was considered the world’s largest MPA for more than a quarter-century.
Analysis and other good stories in the latest issue of MPA News.
