Note: This item is longer and more difficult than usual.
Dr Nick Smith, the Minister for Conservation, travelled to Campbell Island last month. He announced that this island and other sub-Antarctic islands would be a marine reserve. A marine reserve is a protected place. There is no fishing allowed, no marine farming and no mining or oil exploration. Only scientific study is allowed.
Campbell Island is 660km south of New Zealand. The other two island groups are the Antipodes and Bounty Islands, between 47 degrees and 52 degrees South. It is not quite as far as the Antarctic so this area is sub-Antarctic, nearly or almost Antarctic. The weather here is cold, wet and windy. The average annual temperature on Campbell Island is 6 degrees C, it rains for 325 days of the year and there is nearly always a strong wind, as strong as 100km per hour sometimes. While this is not a pleasant place for humans to live, it is the breeding ground for 10% of the world’s sea birds – including penguins and albatross – and sea mammals- right whales, seals and sea lions.
These sub-Antarctic islands are also good places for commercial fishing and scientists worry that if too many fish are caught, there will be a shortage. This would mean less food for the bird and animals in the area.
Now New Zealand has 37 marine reserves, all around country, many of them around the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland. These new reserves are 435,000 hectares in size while most of the coastal reserves are very small. Now 9.56% of coastal waters (out to the 12 nautical mile limit) are protected. The United Nations recommends 10%. It is likely that Kaikoura will have the next marine reserves.
New Zealand has the fourth largest ocean of any country. In 1982, the United Nations recognized that a country’s territorial sea extended out to 12 nautical miles (22.2km) from the coast. This is part of our territory. A country has an exclusive economic zone out to 20 nautical miles. This gives a country the right for fish or oil exploration in this area but the surface of the sea is international water.
Vocabulary
- marine (adj) – relating to the sea
- a reserve (n) – a park, place for recreation
- exploration (n), explore (v) – search to discover something unknown
- breeding (adj) breed (v and n) – having babies (used for animals)
- coastal (adj) – around the coast
- nautical (adj) – involving ships
- territorial (adj), territory (n) – land
- exclusive (adj) – no one else can use it
- surface (n) – the area on top of the water (or land or an object eg a table)