Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary to Protect 240K Square Miles of South Pacific

Summary: At the UN in September 2015 Prime Minister John Key announced New Zealand's plan to set aside 240k square miles for the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary in 2016.

view from Raoul Island of lesser Kermadec islets of Meyer (center left), Egeria Rock (center foreground) and Dayrell (center right); May 1999: Lawrie Mead (LawrieM at en.wikipedia), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, at United Nations headquarters in New York City, John Key, New Zealand’s 38th Prime Minister since November 2008, announced the creation of a marine sanctuary of 240,000 square miles (621,597 square kilometers) in the South Pacific Ocean’s Kermadec Islands.

Mr. Key’s announcement is congruent with the key theme of sustainable development as expressed in 17 goals newly adopted on Friday, Sept. 25, in a high-level plenary meeting of the United Nations’ General Assembly. Goal #14 concerns conservation and sustainable use of marine resources, oceans, and seas.

Creation of Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary provides protection for the presently pristine environment from fishing (aquaculture, commercial, recreational) and fishing-related tourism; and from mining for gas, minerals, and oil.

Arising as a subtropical volcanic island arc in the South Pacific Ocean, the Kermadec (kərˈmædɛk) Islands stretch fairly equidistantly northeast of New Zealand’s North Island and southwest of the Polynesian archipelagic Kingdom of Tonga. The southwest-to-northeast oriented arc consists of four main islands as well as strings of isolated rocks and seamounts. As the largest and most northerly of the main islands, Raoul Island, also known as Sunday Island, is the arc’s only inhabited island, housing a field station managed by the Department of Conservation since 1937.

Extending across the 200 nautical mile limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from New Zealand’s northern coast, Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary represents 15 percent of the country's total EEZ. The Sanctuary stretches from L’Esperance Rock in the south to Raoul Island in the north.

Dramatic geology defines the arc of volcanic islands. Running from North Island’s northeastern tip to northeast of the arc’s northern outskirts on Monowai Seamount, the abruptly sloping Kermadec Trench plunges, as the world’s fifth deepest oceanic trench, to a depth that is deeper, at 32,963 feet (10,047 meters), than Mount Everest, at 29,029 feet (8,848 meters), is high.

The Kermadec and Tonga trenches occur in the southwestern reaches of the Pacific Ocean’s dynamic Ring of Fire, also known as the Circum-Pacific belt, the scene of 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes. Formed at the destructive, or convergent, plate boundary between the overriding Indo-Australian Plate and the subducting Pacific Plate, the Kermadec arc includes at least 30 submarine volcanoes.

The Kermadec Islands abound in biological diversity, in air, on land and in water. Small storm petrels (Hydrobatidae) and large wandering albatrosses (Diomedeidae) number among over 6 million seabirds, representing 39 species, claiming the Kermadec area as home territory. The Kermadecs are sited on migration routes for up to 35 species of dolphins and whales, including the world’s largest extant animal, the endangered blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). The area claims 150 species of fish and over 250 species of corals and tiny bryozoans, aquatic invertebrates known commonly as moss animals.

Kermadec land and waters shelter three critically endangered sea turtle species: green (Chelonia mydas); hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata); and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea).

Slated to be created officially with legislation planned for 2016, Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary encompasses an area about the size of France. The sanctuary equates locally in New Zealand to twice the size of New Zealand’s land mass of 103,734 square miles (268,671 square kilometers). Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is 50 times the size of Fiordland, New Zealand’s largest national park, with an area of 4,826.28 square miles (12,500 square kilometers). The new sanctuary is 35 times larger than the total area of 6,834 square miles (17,700 square kilometers) of New Zealand’s 44 marine reserves.

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary adds emphasis to the urgency of safeguarding the world’s oceans and marine resources already expressed by the establishment of three other large protected areas in the Pacific Ocean in the 21st century.

Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was set in law Nov. 16, 2012, by Tony Burke, Australia’s Federal Environment Minister. The reserve covers 382,180 square miles (989,842 square kilometers) located east of the Great Barrier Reef in the South Pacific.

The Pacific Remote Islands Marine Monument was proclaimed Jan. 6, 2009, by 43rd U.S. President George Walker Bush, and expanded Sept. 25, 2014, by 44th U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama II. The marine monument has a non-contiguous total of 490,343 square miles (1,269,980 square kilometers) in the North Pacific.

Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve, revealed in the House of Commons’ Budget published March 18, 2015, encompasses 322,000 square miles (834,000 square kilometers) in the South Pacific.

Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary combines with the three Pacific areas protected by Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to account for a total of 1,352,525 square miles (3,503,023 square kilometers) of Pacific Ocean designated for conservation and preservation.

The tally may seem like a tiny, tiny drop in a gargantuan bucket in comparison to the Pacific Ocean’s vastness of 63,800,000 square miles (about 165,250,000 square kilometers).

Yet, the Earth’s environment is sensitive to all scales of change, and Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary symbolizes the beginning, not the end, of commitment to conservation and sustainable use of Earth’s oceans.

first-time view of Dermechinus horridus, an abyssal species of deep sea urchins, as live species on seafloor, at thousands of meters deep, on lavas of Rumble V volcano, Kermadec Arc; Friday, April 15, 2005; credit New Zealand-American Submarine Ring of Fire 2005 Exploration (NZASRoF'05), NOAA Vents Program: NOAA Photo Library, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

view from Raoul Island of lesser Kermadec islets of Meyer (center left), Egeria Rock (center foreground) and Dayrell (center right); May 1999: Lawrie Mead (LawrieM at en.wikipedia), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nugent_Meyer_Dayrell_Islands.jpg

first-time view of Dermechinus horridus, an abyssal species of deep sea urchins, as live species on seafloor, at thousands of meters deep, on lavas of Rumble V volcano, Kermadec Arc; Friday, April 15, 2005; credit New Zealand-American Submarine Ring of Fire 2005 Exploration (NZASRoF'05), NOAA Vents Program: NOAA Photo Library, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Expl1825_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg;
NOAA Photo Library, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/

For further information:

"Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary." Publication number INFO 750. Wellington NZ: New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, 2015.

“PM announces Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.” Beehive > Latest Releases. 29 September 2015.
Available via New Zealand government @ http://beehive.govt.nz/release/pm-announces-kermadec-ocean-sanctuary?