Environmentalists Slam Proposed Marine Sanctuary

(Feb. 17) -- A plan to protect a pristine coral reef system located in one of the last remnants of Britain's colonial empire has encountered an unlikely opponent: environmentalists.

The proposed sanctuary would span the majority of the Chagos Archipelago, a series of atolls approximately twice the size of Britain located in the Indian Ocean 300 miles south of Mauritius.

"This is a remarkable opportunity for the U.K. to create one of the world's largest marine protected areas and double the global coverage of the world's oceans benefiting from full protection," David Miliband, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary, said in a statement.

Opponents of the plan say it is unethical because Britain, which still controls the area as a part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, would effectively be restricting portions of the archipelago for use by its original inhabitants, the Chagossians.

Britain and the United States relocated 1,500 Chagossians to Mauritius in the 1960s to make way for a U.S. military base on Diego Garcia. Because of an ongoing territorial dispute between Britain and Mauritius, some environmentalists have decried the marine protection plan.

In e-mails obtained by New Scientist, Klaus Bosselmann, director of the New Zealand Center for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland, said the proposed sanctuary would "invalidate ... the right of the Chagos islanders to return" to parts of the island chain slated for protection. Any such restrictions are "severely unethical," Bosselmann wrote.

One of the word's leading environmental groups, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has effectively signed off on the British plan, New Scientist reported, despite the fact that Bosselmann serves as chair of the organization's ethics group.

Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN's director general, told New Scientist that the group "in no way takes or endorses a position with regard to the sovereignty of the archipelago." Moreover, Marton-Lefevre disputed the claim that the reserve would prevent the Chagossians from returning to the region.

Britain has said it will eventually relinquish the islands to Mauritius, making the future of a marine sanctuary that much more complex in terms of legal standing.

The ocean water of the Chagos Archipelago has been found to be among the least polluted in the world, and the coral reef system is said to support more than 220 kinds of coral and 1,000 species of fish.

The plan for the reserve is open for "public consultation" until March 5, according to New Scientist.