Submission from the Chagos Conservation
Trust
BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY
1. SUMMARY AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) has
the most pristine tropical marine environment surviving on the
planet. Its half million square kilometres are Britain's greatest
area of marine biodiversity by far. The UK Government and BIOT
Administration are committed to managing BIOT as if it were a
World Heritage site and have enacted significant legislation to
protect this globally important environment. However a more robust
and extensive framework for conservation is needed to meet future
challenges. The CCT invites the FAC to include the following in
its recommendations to the Government in respect of governance
of the BIOT:
(a) The existing environmental safeguards
should be strengthened and extended to create a robust, long-term
conservation framework with the maximum international support.
(b) This should include: extension of the
existing Ramsar Area on part of Diego Garcia to the whole of the
Archipelago; the removal of exclusions to the Environment Zone;
establishing a "no-take" fishing zone covering at least
one third of the Territory's coastal and lagoonal waters; and
international support for a new, comprehensive reserve area (eg
Ramsar, UNESCO, IUCN).
(c) Greatly increased surveillance should
be instituted, notably by the employment of a second patrol vessel.
(d) In preparing for any extension of the
Agreements with the United States beyond 2016, the Government
should seek to secure a greater US Government contribution to
environmental conservation within BIOT.
(e) The issue of human settlement needs to
take full account of the environmental implications.
2. BACKGROUND
(a) BIOT
The Chagos Islands, in the centre of the Indian
Ocean, have belonged to Britain since 1814 (The Treaty of Paris)
and are constituted as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
The area includes 55 tiny and remote islands, 10 coral reefs,
and five coral atolls. Only one island, Diego Garcia, is inhabited
(by military personnel and civilian contract employees). It accounts
for over two-thirds of the total land area of 50 square kms. The
other 54 (tiny and uninhabited) coral islands cover a total area
of only 16 square kms. They are set in some 500,000 square kilometres
of sea in the central Indian Ocean.
BIOT is in two key respects distinctive among
the Overseas Territories:
(i) Formed in 1965 for the defence interests
of the UK and the USA, it has since the early 1970s been devoid
of population, save for a small British administrative team and
personnel manning the US base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.
(ii) Its submarine topography and life forms
make it, as Ministers have stated, "of global environmental
importance"; they have undertaken to administer it "with
no less regard for natural heritage considerations than areas
actually nominated as World Heritage Sites".
(b) Chagos Conservation Trust
The Chagos Conservation Trust (CCT) initially
named The Friends of the Chagos, was founded in 1992. It has environmental,
educational and scientific objectives, principally to conserve
the environment of the Chagos Archipelago (constituted as the
British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and to study and make known
the science and history related to the area.
The Trust is fortunate to enjoy the participation
of some of the foremost experts in the relevant specialist fields
of marine biology, notably that of coral reef ecology. Under the
joint auspices of the CCT and Warwick University two major multi-disciplinary
expeditions were mounted, in 1996 and 2006. Both were led by Professor
Charles Sheppard, who is currently also Conservation Consultant
to the BIOT Administration.
The Trust also has links, not least through
its Executive Committee members, with other leading organisations
involved with science and conservation in the area, including:
RSPB, the University of Wales, The Nature Conservancy, the Zoological
Society and Coral Cay Conservation. Additionally the Executive
Committee contains members who have had personal experience of
BIOT as Commissioner and UK Representative.
The Trust, for its part, discusses the data
available and conveys its own views to the FCO on priorities for
action; and it collaborates with the UK Overseas Territories Forum
to the same end. At the same time, it undertakes original research
into the history of the Archipelago. Its findings, both historical
and natural historical, are published regularly in its journal,
Chagos News, as well as through the internet and in other formats,
eg CDs, brochures and a book, Peak of Limuria, The story of Diego
Garcia and the Chagos Archipelago (2004). It occasionally organises
public conferences, of which the next is to take place on 25 October
this year at the Zoological Society of London. The Trust's website
is: www.chagosconservationtrust.org or www.chagos-trust.org.
(c) The Global Importance of BIOT's Natural
Environment
These are features which make the Chagos an
outstandingly important environmental site:
(i) The archipelago has the most pristine
tropical marine environment surviving on the planet.
(ii) The wildlife biodiversity of Chagos
is very rich. It provides at least 220 coral species and over
1,000 species of fish with a stronghold which is vital. It is
also a refuge and breeding ground for whales, sharks, dolphins,
marine turtles, rare crabs and other crustaceans, and some 270
species of birds. In marine terms BIOT is by far the most bio-diverse
part of the UK and Overseas Territories.
(iii) The islands are isolated and at the
very centre of the Indian Ocean where it acts as an "oasis"
for marine and island species (which are nearly all in decline
under pressure from the effects of massive, recent human population
growth in the region).
(iv) The Chagos contains the world's healthiest
coral reefs and the world's largest surviving coral atoll. Their
importance increases as most reefs elsewhere are being damaged
or destroyed by human activity. Scientists fear that half of the
world's few remaining coral reefs could be lost by 2050. It is
essential to save them. Hundreds of millions of people in the
world depend on healthy reefs in one way or another. Living reefs
provide food, protect beaches from erosion and form a treasure
house of genetically diverse creatures and plants.
(v) The Chagos coral reefs also have a unique
bio-geographical function by providing a point for lavae of many
species, brought by west-moving currents from the eastern part
of the Indian Ocean, to mature and spawn fresh larvae, thus enabling
the depleted reefs off the African coast to be restocked.
(vi) Most of the Chagos is uninhabited. This
is the main reason why the ecology of the Chagos is nearly pristine
and full of diverse life, a rare surviving example of nature as
it should be; where human pressures do not conflict with environmental
needs and lead to degradation and impoverishment.
(vii) Also, because it still has a mainly
unspoilt and healthy environment, the Chagos provides us with
a scientific benchmark for how the world should be; and this is
evidently important in helping us to understand and deal with
such problems as pollution, loss of biodiversity and climate change.
3. PRESENT SITUATION
As CCT understands the position, the current
priority for the governance of BIOT is the assertion of sovereignty
and the treaty arrangements with the United States in respect
of the military facilities on Diego Garcia. CCT considers that
that the long-term protection of BIOT's globally important natural
environment should also be treated as a priority and that greater
resources should be devoted to this end.
Key features of the Trust's assessment of the
present environmental situation in BIOT are that:
(a) For reasons described above the condition
of the Chagos reefs (in contrast to those in most of the world)
is outstandingly good, owing to their isolation and freedom from
pollution. They are exceptional in terms of the number and diversity
of species found.
(b) The seas and low-lying atolls of the
Chagos Archipelago are no less affected by climatic change than
other parts of the tropical seas. Rising sea levels and sea surface
temperatures, increasing in line with predictions, are causing
accelerated erosion, periodic coral mortality, and the storm surges
which threaten the freshwater lenses on which vegetation depends.
(c) The pressures of over-fishing and illegal
fishing in the Indian Ocean are increasing and will continue to
increase in the light of the massive increase of human population
in the area in the past 50 years (a fourfold increase in India
alone). The apparent reduction of the shark population by 90%
in the period is an indication of this. Increasing visits by environmentally
careless yachtsmen are a lesser but further factor. The Administration's
single patrol vessel, Pacific Marlin, which is also responsible
for deep sea fisheries surveillance and plays a crucial role,
is insufficient to fulfil the full conservation needs in this
huge area. Moreover the arrangements for fisheries control, contracted
out to the Marine Resources Assessment Group, should be better
integrated with the overall Conservation Management Plan.
(d) There is no formal protection for the
northern islands of Peros Banhos Atoll, Eagle Island, or any part
of Salomon or Egmont Atolls. Furthermore there is no protection
for the non-islanded reef systems, including wide areas of the
Great Chagos Bank and the surrounding shallow reefs and banks.
Marine protection is restricted to those areas adjacent to the
existing protected areas.
4. PROPOSALS
(a) Extension of Ramsar Protected Natural
Sites
CCT proposed in 2005 a phased extension of this
coverage. The Government agreed in principle to the first phase
named "The Chagos Islands Ramsar Site". This site would
include all of the land areas and their adjacent territorial seas,
a designation producing a site with seven separate areas.
If at any point the BIOT government were to
extend the territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, as is now
the norm in most countries, we propose that this Ramsar designation
should be extended accordingly. This 12 nautical mile limit is
already used in the fisheries management regime. This extension
would aggregate this Ramsar Site into two separate areas.
There is no doubt that this Ramsar site meets
the requirements for designation. It encompasses some of the most
important nesting sites for seabirds in the western Indian Ocean.
It includes some of the least disturbed island ecosystems in this
Ocean, including several islands not impacted by alien invasive
species. It also includes some of the most extensive shallow water
reef ecosystems, including entire atoll ecosystems in the case
of Egmont, Peros Banhos and Salomon.
This designation will, CCT believes, tie in
well with the recently declared BIOT Environment Zone. The latter
provides a statement of intent with regards to environmental protection
from the edge of Territorial Waters to a distance of 200 nautical
miles. Ramsar designation would effectively fill the gaps of the
Territorial Waters within this Environment Zone.
(b) Proposed Removal of Exclusions to the
Environment Zone
Currently the Environment Zone has an outer
boundary (the 200 nm limit) and several inner boundaries around
each island or group of islands. This has the effect of excluding
from the Environment Zone all islands and their immediately adjacent
reefs and shallow waters (the areas which are richest in biodiversity
and in particular need of environmental protection). The simple
removal of all inner boundaries is proposed.
(c) The Chagossians
The Trust is concerned that a satisfactory outcome
be agreed in respect of the claim of the Chagossian people, for
whom members of the Trust have much sympathy, but the Trust itself
cannot constitutionally involve itself in the legal, political
or diplomatic issues involved in finding solutions to their claims.
The Trust nevertheless remains keen to involve the Chagossians
in discussion of the environmental issues pertaining to the Chagos
Archipelago. The CCT however wishes to offer three observations,
which the FAC may care to take into account:
(i) The CCT believes that it would be dangerous
for the Government to ignore the likely effects of climatic trends
in considering the longer term future of these atolls, and in
particular any proposals for new human habitation.
(ii) The Trust considers that even as the
legal arguments continue it is not too soon for the British Government
and other concerned bodies to begin to draw up a long-term framework
for sustaining the environmental integrity of the Chagos Archipelago
while taking the possibility of human habitation into account.
(iii) Any such proposals for new human habitation
need to take account of the importance of safeguarding the unique,
delicate and vulnerable ecology of the archipelago. This is not
only because new human settlement would have a profound impact
on important ecosystems and species, but because any degradation
of the environment could adversely affect the welfare and prosperity
of possible human communities.
10 October 2007
|
