The isolated UK Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha, the world’s most remote human settlement, has been declared the largest fully protected marine reserves in the Atlantic Ocean at 687,000 square kilometres.

Note the location of Tristan da Cunha Islands in the Atlantic.

Tristan da Cunha

• Tristan da Cunha, which is inhabited by less than 300 humans 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 is home to tens of millions of seabirds and several unique land birds that are comparable to the Galapagos island finches.
• 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.

Significance of protection

• After joining the UK’s Blue Belt Programme, it will become the largest no-take zone in the Atlantic and the fourth largest on the planet.
• This will close over 90 per cent of their waters to harmful activities such as bottom-trawling fishing, sand extraction and deep-sea mining.
• The almost 700,000 square kilometres of the Marine Protection Zone (MPZ) is almost three times the size of the UK and will safeguard the future of sevengill sharks, Yellow-nosed albatrosses and rockhopper penguins.
• MPZs involve the management of certain natural areas for biodiversity conservation or species protection and are created by delineating zones with permitted and non-permitted areas within that zone.

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