On November 13, 2020, the UK Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha declared the largest fully protected marine reserves in the Atlantic Ocean at 687,000 square kilometres.
- It is home to the world’s most remote human settlement.
- This will close over 90 percent of their waters to harmful activities such as bottom-trawling fishing, sand extraction and deep-sea mining.
- Tristan da Cunha is inhabited by less than 300 humans and it is a small chain of islands over 6,000 miles from London in the South Atlantic and the water around the islands are considered to be the richest in the world.
- The mountainous archipelago Tristan da Cunha is home to tens of millions of seabirds and several unique land birds.
- The island group is also home to the World Heritage Site of Gough and Inaccessible Islands, which is one of the most important seabird islands in the world.
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson while inaugurating the marine reserve, called on other nations to join in their ambition to protect 30 per cent of the world’s ocean by 2030.
(Source: Indian Express)