Chilean Government Plans To Construct World’s Biggest Marine Park To Protect Easter Island Fish Stocks

The Chilean government reportedly is set to unveil its plan to put up a vast marine park to protect the marine life in Easter Island from illegal fishing.

The marine park, which would cover 278,000 sq miles of ocean, would be the biggest of its kind if created before the proposed marine reserve around the Pitcairn Islands by the UK government, as reported by The Guardian on Sunday.

"We are pushing hard because we want it to happen," says Sara Roe, president of the fisherman's association at the harbour. "People doing illegal fishing are taking our resources, our money."

According to Roe, there was a "dramatic decline" in the tuna, swordfish and barracuda caught by her fishermen in 2004 and 2013, which compels some of them to enter farming and do construction jobs.

Under the plan to put up vast marine park, some 3,000 locals would be allowed "to fish 50 miles out to sea and through a corridor to Sala y Gómez, tiny inhabited islands to the east," which means that fishing beyond that would be prohibited.

Also, possible illegal fishing activities will be monitored by the Chilean Navy, EMTV reported on Tuesday.

"They are stealing our tuna," says Petero Avaka, the president of a fisherman's association called Hanga Roa Tai. "If I had a bigger vessel to catch them I would go. Most people think the same. Unfortunately there is no way to control it."

Meanwhile, Easter Island Commune mayor Pedro Edmunds supports the government's plan to create the marine park which he sees as an "opportunity to turn around bad feeling over the national park."

Also, some locals of Rapa Nui thought the marine park will not just conserve their livelihood and fish stocks, but is also a step on becoming "an environmental champion rather than a pariah."

"Now more than ever, we are aware that as a community we can use natural resources to extinction, which we did with the land and the forest," says Mike Rapu, a former national free diving champion who runs a diving centre in Hanga Roa. "Based on that experience, we have to tell the world we have learned that lesson."