 The Chagos and Maldives chain of islands was created after India slid north, millions of years ago, crumpling up the Himalayas in front of it. Upwelling lava from a hotspot deep in the earth’s mantle created the bases of these islands; those of Chagos were pushed up 45 million years ago. The islands’ lava cores then began their long, slow subsidence, while reefs from the remains of living coral built up around them. Amazingly, the coral under Diego Garcia is about a mile deep.
The French assumed sovereignty in the late 18th century and began to exploit the islands for copra, originally employing slave labour. However the islands were never commercially important.
During the Napoleonic wars Britain captured Mauritius and Reunion from France. Under the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Britain restored Reunion to France and France ceded Mauritius to Britain together with its dependencies which comprised Seychelles and other islands, including the Chagos. In the late 19th century Charles Darwin drew extensively on scientific surveys of the Chagos archipelago for his theories on coral reefs.
In 1965 the Chagos Islands were detached to become part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, with the full agreement of the Mauritius Council of Ministers and a grant paid to Mauritius, The Territory is administered by the UK Government through the BIOT Administration. There are no economic activities on the islands. UK/US Agreements regulate the use of the Territory for defence purposes.
 The following are features which make the Chagos an outstandingly important environmental site and threats which make comprehensive conservation so important.
The Chagos contain some of the world’s healthiest coral reefs and the world’s largest surviving coral atoll. Scientists fear that half of the world’s coral reefs could be lost by 2025. It is essential to save them: hundreds of millions of people in the world depend on healthy reefs in one way or another. Living reefs provide food, protect beaches from erosion and form a treasure house of genetically diverse creatures and plants.
The wildlife biodiversity of Chagos is very rich. It provides at least 220 coral species and over 1000 species of fish in a surviving stronghold.
 It is also a refuge and breeding ground for large and important populations of sharks, dolphins, marine turtles, rare crabs, birds and other vulnerable marine and island species. In marine terms BIOT is by far the most bio-diverse part of the UK and its Overseas Territories.
The archipelago is isolated and at the very centre of the Indian Ocean where it acts as an ‘oasis’ for marine and island species (which are nearly all in decline elsewhere under pressure from the effects of massive recent human population growth in the region).
Most of the Chagos is uninhabited. This is the main reason why the ecology of the Chagos is full of diverse life, a rare surviving example of nearly pristine tropical habitats.
Because of its mainly unspoilt and healthy environment, the Chagos provides us with a scientific benchmark for how the world could be without pollution and other environmental degradation. This is evidently important in helping us to understand and deal with such problems as pollution, loss of biodiversity and climate change.
Benefits of Creating the Chagos Marine Protected Area
Protecting a very rare and precious tropical marine ecosystem. The Chagos archipelago is a very special and rare place – a relatively unpolluted and undisturbed part of the Indian Ocean, with its islands, reefs and waters still teeming with life. The waters around the Chagos Islands are by far the richest marine ecosystem under UK jurisdiction. Oceans play a critical role in sustaining life as they did in creating it. However, the unrestrained toll of human activity (such as pollution, over-fishing and carbon emissions) is destroying ocean ecosystems. Fortunately, a few areas remain largely unspoilt. The Chagos Islands and their surrounding waters are one such place. These waters contain up to half of the healthy reefs in the Indian Ocean, making them one of the most ecologically sound reef systems on the planet. Teeming with life, they enrich and replenish the whole ocean with the ecological goods and services on which millions of people rely. The Chagos Marine Protected Area will shelter these islands, reefs and ocean ecosystems, conserving marine life and ultimately the sustainability of the Indian Ocean. As a fully protected area the Chagos Islands will provide an important global scientific reference site for research in crucial areas such as ocean acidification, coral reef resilience, sea level rise, fish stock decline and climate change.
Marine life almost everywhere—including fish, invertebrates, mammals, seabirds and turtles—is suffering catastrophic losses as a result of over-exploitation, ‘by-catch’ and pollution. Around 90% of stocks of fish species such a tuna and cod have been destroyed by inadequately controlled commercial fishing, particularly in recent decades. These threats, combined with the effects of ocean acidification from rising carbon dioxide emissions, put the survival of many marine species in doubt. Fortunately there are some proven means to help avert a complete marine catastrophe and one of the most important of these is the creation of large no-take marine protected areas. These can protect a whole ecosystem, halting destructive practices and allowing for recovery and re-establishment of healthy environments and their associated stocks of fish and other species. Scientists fear that half of the world’s coral reefs could be lost by 2025. It is essential to save them: hundreds of millions of people in the world depend on healthy reefs in one way or another. Living reefs provide food, protect beaches from erosion and form a treasure house of genetically diverse creatures and plants. The wildlife biodiversity of Chagos is very rich. It provides at least 220 coral species and over 1000 species of fish in a surviving stronghold. It is also a refuge and breeding ground for large and important populations of sharks, dolphins, marine turtles, rare crabs, birds and other vulnerable marine and island species. In marine terms BIOT is by far the most bio-diverse part of the UK and its Overseas Territories.
Deep Waters
The Chagos waters also include an exceptional diversity of deepwater habitats formed by the separation of tectonic plates, fracture zones, sea-floor spreading, sea-mounts and ridges, 6,000-metre-deep (about four miles) trenches and vast deep-sea plains. These deepwater habitats have not been investigated or mapped in detail, research elsewhere has shown a close connection between such a deep and physically diverse sea-floor and high diversity of remarkable species. The conservation of these areas is a priority.
The Chagossian people
The Chagos Conservation Trust greatly values the support for conservation on the part of members of the Chagossian community. The Trust and the largest Chagossian Community in the UK are working together on practical cooperation. This includes scholarships for Chagossians coral reef conservation training and experience (organised by Coral Cay Conservation). It is completely clear, and spelt out by the Government, that decisions on the establishment of a Marine Protected Area in the British Indian Ocean Territory are without prejudice to the pending legal proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. We cannot predict the future. We believe that the Chagos Islands and their surrounding waters should be protected for the resources and values they have today. This designation will mean that the Chagos Islands and their resources will remain healthy no matter what the future holds. Should the situation change following the legal process, everyone involved accepts that the protected area could change to accommodate that. Therefore this designation will not prove a legal obstacle if the Chagossians are granted the right to return in the future. The Trust intends to continue our work with Chagossian organisations to ensure these islands and their resources are maintained in the best condition possible for the future, whatever that may be.
A United Kingdom conservation legacy
This designation of a strict Marine Protected Area out to the 200 mile limit will establish the largest marine reserve in the world, a conservation legacy almost unrivalled in scale and significance. With immediate effect this will contribute to a number of globally agreed targets, such as halting the decline of biodiversity by 2010, establishing a representative marine protection network by 2012 and restoring depleted fish stocks by 2015 where possible. No other action taken by the United Kingdom makes anything near such a considerable contribution to these agreed global targets and undoubtedly establishes the UK as a world leader in marine conservation for the benefit of all nations for the foreseeable future.
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