From Alaska to Patagonia: Chile leads the creation of a marine corridor to protect the Pacific

Nine representatives of American governments participate in the signing of the agreement for the protection of the oceans at the Summit of the Americas.NICOLAS GALEANO Presidency of Colombia (Presidency of Colombia EFE)

Chilean President Gabriel Boric led this Thursday at the Summit of the Americas the launch of an initiative promoted by the South American country that seeks to create protected marine corridors from Patagonia to Alaska.

Nine countries in the region signed the "Americas for the Protection of the Ocean" coalition, including the United States, Mexico and Colombia.

One of the objectives of the agreement signed this morning in Los Angeles is to work together to protect or conserve at least 30% of the Pacific Ocean by 2030, and to face three major crises: climate change, biodiversity loss and deterioration of the ocean.

"It's a fight for survival," Boric explained.

“The oceans are the main carbon sinks and they play a crucial role in the fight against climate change,” the president stated.

About 30% of the CO2 that humans emit is captured by the layers of the sea, as well as most of the heat that the emissions generate, added the president.

During the first two years, Chile and Canada will lead the coordination between the member states of this new agreement.

“The world needs America united.

We have to talk again about the issues that unite us, not just about what divides us, and the protection of the environment is, without a doubt, one of those issues, "said the president.

“If we are able to use our leadership to protect what belongs to all of humanity, we will be contributing decisively, and we will be able to say more properly to developed countries, such as the United States -which is not here present- , or the European Union, China and India, which have a duty to make more efforts to protect our environment”, added the Chilean president, although Washington was represented at the meeting by John Kerry, the White House special envoy for climate change.

The presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama and Peru participated in the act, as well as the foreign ministers of Mexico and Canada, in addition to the aforementioned authorities.

"This effort is worthwhile not only for our generation, but for future ones," said Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo, who celebrated the initiative, in his opinion the "most important" of the summit.

Maximiliano Bello, from the organization Mission Blue, whose job is to influence States to create marine protected areas around the world, explains that the signed agreement is not binding.

“It's a hybrid.

It establishes concrete actions for the presidencies and imposes workshops, for example.

Part of that hybrid is also respecting some of the actions that are already taking place in the region, such as the tropical corridor of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.

This coalition expands it, but it is a process that has been going on for 17 years.”

The commitment to establish protected marine areas in the region allows opening the door to preservation mechanisms.

"Scientists say that at least 30% of the area has to be high and totally protected, without extractive activities, at least with high impact, such as industrial ones," says Bello.

"And that the declaration talks about conservation opens the door to other mechanisms that can also improve the sustainability of some of the activities," he added.

Chile's leadership in this matter is not accidental;

It is the country in the region with the largest protected marine area (43%).

The Minister of the Environment, Maisa Rojas, assures in an email that one of the objectives of the Government of Boric is, with the support of the Global Environment Fund, to design a roadmap that allows "expanding the network of marine protected areas to increase the representativeness of unprotected ecosystems, especially in the center and north of the country where we want the protection of coastal and marine ecosystems to improve”.

One of the criticisms that the Chilean protection plan has received is that it is overdue in its continental coastal zone and that

only five of the 28 marine areas with some category of protection have a management plan.

In response, the Roja minister affirms that they have already approved four management plans for marine and coastal protected areas of multiple uses and that they are working on the formulation of another six, "along with the efforts to launch governance instances and awareness campaigns. monitoring”.

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