Nomination for a World Heritage Site 2009 - Phoenix Islands ...

the parrotfish on the outgoing tide. Within the group, a few fish swam faster and shook,
stimulating the entire school to spiral and bolt upward, releasing ecstatic bursts of eggs and
sperm along the way like biological fireworks. The egg and sperm clouds they left behind
were so dense they dulled the penetration of sunlight through the water. Again and again the
fish repeated this act, spiralling toward the surface every ten to fifteen seconds. For almost
an hour the school exploded in a rite of reproduction, relying on the fast ebb tide to carry the
fertilized eggs far out to sea, where they would be safer from predators. As I watched from
the seafloor, a large shadow passed over me. A half-ton manta ray, hovering magically and
somehow unmoved by the current, was feeding serenely on the parrotfish eggs and sperm.
Too soon, our nearly empty air tanks forced us to return to the surface and our waiting skiff.
"Incredible—I've never seen anything like
it!" said David Obura, a specialist in coral
reefs who has spent more than a thousand
hours underwater studying ocean life. I also
was deeply moved. As vice president for
global marine programs at the New England
Aquarium, I've made it my goal to find
Earth's last pockets of primal ocean, those
underwater havens that have remained
unspoiled as long as the ocean can
remember. Here in this lagoon we had
discovered such a place.”
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Photo Credit: David Obura
Dr. Jim Maragos, the world renowned coral reef scientist from the US Fish and Wildlife
Service, has been diving all over Pacific for over 40 years. He quotes: "The Phoenix Islands
Protected Area is the single-most important conservation achievement in the modern history
of Oceania. The Republic of Kiribati, a nation of low islands and atolls, made this noble
commitment. The importance of the eight mostly uninhabited Phoenix Islands and atolls in
the Protected Area include near pristine coral reefs, deep reefs, marine mammals, marine
reptiles, seabirds, and shorebirds that will become even more important as these continue to
decline and vanish elsewhere on the earth. The Republic and supporters, including local
communities, nongovernmental organizations and scientists, deserve considerable credit for
this achievement, and I hope that other nations will be encouraged to establish additional
large scale marine protected areas within their jurisdictions. The Phoenix Islands clearly
warrant recognition from the global community and World Heritage status."
Coral reefs
The Phoenix Islands of Kiribati consist of three atolls with lagoons encircled by perimeter
coral reefs (Orona, Nikumaroro, and Kanton) and five (Manra, Rawaki, Birnie, McKean and
Enderbury) low reef islands surrounded by fringing coral reefs. Two additional outlying low
reef islands (Baker and Howland) to the northwest are territories of the United States and
protected as National Wildlife Refuges. Collectively they are among the least disturbed coral
reefs in the world. The reef system is so remote and largely pristine (except for Kanton which
was modified as a military base between WWII and the mid 1970s) that it can serve as a
benchmark for understanding and potentially restoring other degraded hard coral ecosystems.