“For the ecological government of President Gabriel Boric, protecting nature and its ecosystems is a priority. The Creation of the Tic Toc Marine Park – Golfo Corcovado it will help us to do that”, assures DW Maisa Rojas, Chile’s Minister of the Environment. ensures shelter for blue whales.
Located in southern Chile, at the beginning of the Corcovado Gulf, this area concentrates near the 10% of the world’s population of blue whales. “One of its populations migrates from Antarctica to the tropics in the Southeast Pacific and spends every season in the area of this new marine park,” explains Rojas.
You may also be interested: Where exactly is the Southern Ocean, the fifth recognized in the world?
The announcement of the creation of this new protected area was carried out within the framework of the United Nations Conference on the Oceans that was held last June in Lisbon (Portugal). For Maximiliano Bello, executive advisor for Ocean Public Policies of the Mission Blue organization, the creation of this new area “demonstrates Chile’s constant effective leadership in the world marine conservation”. “When he has already far surpassed the barrier of 30% protectionthe minimum number that scientists have indicated of protection for the oceanChile shows today that it is not enough to stay at 30% or 43% ”, he points out to DW.
In this way, it highlights the role that the South American country has had in the creation of marine protected areas in the region. “Chile set the bar very high, and countries such as Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina have followed,” he details, recalling that “as we were able to see in Lisbon, many other countries in the region are on the verge of continuing to increase this protection”.
“Latin America could be the first continent to reach the minimum 30% marine protection in the coming years.”
The marine park protects the migratory route of the blue whale
Despite this progress, the demand for protection of this area is historic and comes decades behind schedule. “There are several steps, efforts and struggles that have led researchers and scientists over 10 years to create this marine park,” reminds DW Paola Hernández, a marine biologist at the Chilean Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity.
In this way, he explains that “one of the factors that triggered the creation of this marine park was the identification of this area as a feeding area for the blue whale and the importance of a migratory corridor for whales and many other species.”
In this sense, Rojas points to this type of initiative as one of the lines to follow during this mandate. “The Chiloé ecoregion has few and small marine protected areas, which in total do not provide more than 1% protection of its surface. Our goal is to protect as marine protected area at least 10% of the ecoregions of continental Chile, from the Chiloé area where the Tic Toc marine park is located northwards, to the border with Peru”get moving.
Another article to read: “They are brutally hunted”: Nina Dobrev denounces shark killing competition in the United States
The creation of the marine park is part of the initiative of the Pacific corridor, which is part of the declaration of the Coalition ‘Americas for the Protection of the Ocean’. It is a proposal from the Chilean government with which it wants to face the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity and the deterioration of the oceans. “It intends to connect species, such as the blue whale and others in a corridor that goes from Alaska to Patagonia,” Rojas details, adding that “it will also connect the region’s marine protected areas in an interhemispheric network for marine conservation.”
This initiative has recently been launched by the governments of Chile and Canada, which will be responsible for preparing a two-year work plan that must be approved by the rest of the countries involved, at the end of this year.
Source: DW