Australia to Create the World's Largest Marine Reserve
Australia says it will
create the world’s largest network of marine parks. These reserves will cover
3.1 million square kilometers of ocean including the Coral Sea. There will be
some restrictions placed on fishing and oil and gas exploration in the
protected zone. Last year, the
Australian government announced its plans to protect the marine life currently
in the Coral Sea which has an area of nearly 1 million square kilometers. The
sea off of the Queensland coast in the northeastern part of Australia is home
of sharks, tuna, tropical reefs and deep sea canyons. I t holds three US navy
ships sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942.
Benefits
Some benefits of having
this area for the marine life is protection of some species. All around the
world sharks are being caught by fisherman and getting their fins cut off in
order for the fisherman to make money off of it. Taking away a sharks fins kill
them resulting in a large decrease in shark population all around the world.
Currently a lot of countries are banning shark fining and this is doing very well for them so far. This will also mean that there will be limited oil and
gas exploration rather than companies just coming in whenever and searching for
a new spot to possibly find oil. This will decrease the chance of having a devastating
oil spill such as the United States saw during the BP oil spill. Also having
limited fishing also keeps the numbers of fish even within the wild. In the
wild there is a food chain and that needs to be in tact because if one species
dies off or is caused to go extinct due to fishing, then that could mess up the
whole entire ecosystem of the ocean life. Having this can also help prevent shark attacks in Australia. This can happen because the sharks wont have to be closer to shore to hunt for food, they can stay within the reserve and be able to live there.
No comments:
Post a Comment