This short article was published today in Vancouver's
24 Hours free news magazine. Good to see this sort of action taking place
A tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean has created the world's third largest marine reserve, as global efforts to preserve biodiversity widen to include everything from insects to fish to forests.
President Anote Tong of the republic of Kiribati, located in the central Pacific between Hawaii and Fiji, announced the formation of the park yesterday at the eighth United Nations convention on biological diversity under way this week in Brazil.
The Phoenix Islands protected Area bans commercial fusing to protect more than 120 species of coral and 520 species of fish inside it's 184,700 square kilometers. It is the first marine park with deep-sea habitat, including underwater mountains.