The Chagos archipelago is a part of the British Indian Ocean Territory and contains the world's largest atoll - the Great Chagos Bank. The Foreign Office is consulting on the idea of giving it protection and creating the world's largest protected marine area and this idea gets an enthusiastic mention in David Miliband's blog.
Now I would, until recently, have been pretty hazy about where the Chagos Archipelago is, why it's important, and what it's got to do with the UK, but I've got myself better informed. The archipelago was depopulated by the UK 40 years ago to allow the building of the US base at Diego Garcia and it's probably that lack of people which has helped keep the area so fantastically rich in wildlife all this time. It is the home to corals, seabirds, turtles and so much more.
Might this be what the UK government is lining up to be its big announcement in next year's International Year of Biodiversity? If it is, then it is a good start!
But there is a lot more to do! The UK Overseas Territories tend to fall through the cracks when it comes to nature conservation. Keen as we are to claim these territories as our own when it suits us, government departments are less keen to claim the responsibility for conserving the UK wildlife that lives on far-flung territories such as the Chagos, Henderson Island, Tristan da Cunha and Monserrat. All is not well with this wildlife and these territories hold large numbers of globally threatened species of birds which may go extinct on our watch without investment of money to save them. There are signs (here and when Hilary Benn recently announced an extra quarter of a million pounds expenditure) that the UK government is beginning to take its responsibilities a little more seriously, and perhaps the consultation on the Chagos is another example, but there is a long way to go before we can claim to be lookiing after the world's threatened species at home - which is what conservation on the UK Overseas territories means.
We fear this is an easy area for any government to cut when the finances get tough - had you heard of the Chagos archipelago? did you really care deeply about it? In order to send the right signal to decision makers please sign the RSPB's Letter to the Future - we want a future rich in nature.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
HilaryJ is absolutely spot on in saying that this initiative must not be used as a further excuse to deny the Chagossians the right to return. Everybody agrees on the need to protect this beautiful part of the planet - it's just that some of us believe that the actual protecting should be done by the indigenous people of the islands, a group of people who care about Chagos more than the rest of us can imagine. The issues of environmental protection and resettlement should be talked about together, NOT as issues divorced from one another.
Indeed, part of the government's strategy to keep the Chagossians in exile has been to try and marginalise them as much as possible. Anybody with an ounce of humanity should resist this, because every time the government criminally refuses to include the Chagossians in discussions on the future of Chagos, they succeed in furthering the myth that the issue of resettlement is somehow dead and buried. Well, it isn't. The Chagossians are a proud people who still want to return to their homeland and they will be fighting for this right for some time to come - including, most likely, in the European Court of Human Rights.
If the RSPB intends to respond to the FCO's consultation on this Marine Protection Area, then I would strongly urge them to include reference to the Chagossians in their representation. Supporting the environmental protection of Chagos and supporting the Chagossians' right of return are not mutually exclusive, despite what the government might say.