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Small island, big ocean: Niue makes its entire EEZ a marine park


Niue
Published date: 3-Nov-2022

When Niueans are babies, their parents traditionally take them down to the seashore and throw them in the water so they learn to swim, Mona Ainu’u told Mongabay. That’s more important in Niue than most places. The country’s 260-square-kilometer (100-square-mile) land area is a single chunk of coral jutting out of the South Pacific Ocean; its closest neighbor, Tonga, is some 600 kilometers (325 nautical miles) away. With so little solid ground, the ocean also needs to be home.

Fishing off the reef or in vaka (“canoes” in Niuean), gleaning mollusks from rocks and diving for clams and crayfish are part of daily life for many of Niue’s 1,620 residents. “My love for the ocean is practical, because I need to fish for my family,” said Ainu’u, a fisher and Niue’s minister of natural resources. “But it’s also a hobby, because I just love being there.”

As minister, Ainu’u has helped bring about a change she hopes will ensure that catch remains for generations: designating Niue’s entire exclusive economic zone (EEZ) — an area about the size of Vietnam — as a multiple-use marine park called Niue Nukutuluea.

Launched in April 2022, the park includes five zones with distinct uses. There’s a no-take zone where fishing, seabed mining, and mineral and oil exploration are prohibited: called Niue Moana Mahu Marine Protected Area, this spans 40% of the EEZ. Inside, there’s a special management area where further restrictions can be imposed around a biodiverse submerged coral atoll called Beveridge Reef. Within 3 nautical miles (5.5 km) of Niue Island is a subsistence special management area managed by adjacent villages, and there’s a restricted commercial-use zone between 3 and 24 nautical miles (5.5 and 44 km) from the island that’s earmarked for local fisheries, tourism, and charter fishing. The remaining expanse, about 56% of the EEZ, is a general-use zone that permits a variety of activities, including licensed foreign commercial fishing.

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