Chagos Marine Preserve Established

[markpj23]

England announced the creation of a 250K square mile marine preserve surrounding the Chagos Bank. No more commercial fishing. I wonder how this might impact cruising visitors who already need a permit to stop.

Overall it seems like a good idea to protect one of the last pristine marine areas in the world.

[goboatingnow]

lly wonder if this is a scam to prevent the original inhabitants from getting back to their islands. Also I suspect the UK gov want to remove all cruisers. They have made it progressively difficult to go there legally.

[Laidback]

At this time there is NO change as to the Law and Rules pertaining to the visits by cruising yachts who have been duly authorized by the BIOT office in London.

[barnakiel]

Well, a 'marine reserve' with a navy base in it?

BS

So the navy guys can **** into the lagoon but the original inhabitants are banned from coming back. Meanwhile, cruisers get charged for something that used to be free.

All this by a nation that has its main seat nearly on the antipodes of Chagos.

Really, BS.

barnie

[bewitched]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Well, a 'marine reserve' with a navy base in it?

BS

So the navy guys can **** into the lagoon but the original inhabitants are banned from coming back. Meanwhile, cruisers get charged for something that used to be free.

All this by a nation that has its main seat nearly on the antipodes of Chagos.

Really, BS.

barnie

I agree

[MarkJ]

Some feel there needs to be some protected area of tropical coral reef somewhere isolated in the world.

Where else is there?

BIOT is as far as can be from normal trade routes, tourism, communities as possible. Only a few cruisers use it each year. Maybe 20 to 30 boats per year?
There are many other places they could go.

Anyway its getting into the piracy area now so maybe the Somali's will police it.

I was pretty angry to see the Australian government making pink exclusion zones in the Great Barrier Reef. I thought just personal playgrounds for Marine scientists. But even the scientists must gain approval to go there and very few approvals are given. They really do want the pink areas untouched.

The pink areas are few(ish) and far away. The Chagos is the same: in world terms is small and faaaaarrrrrrrrrrr away. I'm sure we could allow it to keep going as much as nature intended as possible.


Mark

[bewitched]

The marine reserve is a great thing

The fact that there is a big Navy base in the middle of it isn't so good.

Nor that the displaced indigenous people are not permitted back because of it.

'it' being the navy base....or perhaps now 'it' is the marine reserve.

I hope that indeed this is an genuine attempt to secure a sanctuary for sea life, but I'm afraid that given the history of this little part of the world, I'm more than a little skeptical.

[MarkJ]

Diego garcia isn't in the national park. Never was.

The Chagos area are to the north of it.

The reasons you can't go to Diego Garcia are different.

As for the displaced population it is a travesty for them, similar to those of Bikini Atol.

I wish the UK Government would do something for them.

[Laidback]

Without getting into politics (which is not permitted in these forums)

The Chagos Archipelago has NEVER had an indigenous population - When the Portuguese - Vasco De Gama in the 1700's discovered these Atols in the middle of the Indian Ocean, there were no people. Much later, African and Indian workers were brought to Chagos to establish a copra industry by French interests. The descendents of the workers were repatriated to Mauritius and the Seychelles when the largest atol Diego Garcia was leased to the USA.
Diego Garcia being the only atol that could sustain unsupported life.
Each repatriee was given passage and paid the equivalent of $14,000 US.

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by Laidback

Much later, African and Indian workers were brought to Chagos to establish a copra industry by French interests

If you go back far enough, new zealand or the entire earth for that matter never had an indigenous population even

[Laidback]

The Maori , the Australian Aboriginal and the Native Americans have certainly qualified as indigenous peoples over thousands of years, the workers who call themselves the Ilois are newcomers to some barren atols in the middle of nowhere. An excellent article on the subject of real indigenous people to be found here :- Indigenous peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by idpnd

If you go back far enough, new zealand or the entire earth for that matter never had an indigenous population even

Although I’m certain that there may be numerous social, anthropological, & legal definitions of “indigenous peoples”; most of them probably include some iteration of:
"The first people to (? permanently ?) populate an area."

[idpnd]

qualified as indigenous peoples over thousands of years

"The most current reliable evidence strongly indicates that initial settlement of New Zealand occurred around 1280 CE."

Shall we say a couple of hundred years? I think the actual question raised would be how many centuries or generations of tenancy you require for people to have any sort of right to the land they live on.

If you require thousands of years or hundreds of generations, by your standards European visitors could be rightfully evicted from what they like to call the United States, and there may be issues with the current occupiers of Palestine as well..

As a matter of fact, squatters usually gain property rights within a few years so I should think 1750-1971 suffices - consider most of the area west of the Mississippi elsewhere was claimed by the French and Spanish at that stage, with the native population still blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

[goboatingnow]

does the recent estabhlistment of the reserve further hamper cruisers ability to visit

Dave

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Laidback

... The Chagos Archipelago has NEVER had an indigenous population - When the Portuguese - Vasco De Gama in the 1700's discovered these Atols in the middle of the Indian Ocean, there were no people. Much later, African and Indian workers were brought to Chagos to establish a copra industry by French interests. The descendents of the workers were repatriated to Mauritius and the Seychelles when the largest atol Diego Garcia was leased to the USA.
Diego Garcia being the only atol that could sustain unsupported life.
Each repatriee was given passage and paid the equivalent of $14,000 US.

Formally correct. But were the inhabitants given free choice or were they forced to move on?

Somehow it is hard to believe anybody will sell their homeland for USD 14k. I would not sell mine ...

BTW, I think repatriates (if this is what you mean by 'repatriee') refers to people returning to their homeland, not being kicked out of it. Or did you mean refugees?

barnie