Photo: Jim Maragos/AP

It is easy to get caught up in the bad news. The oceans are filling with plastic. Coral reefs are dying due to ocean acidification caused by climate change.  Overfishing will wipe out all currently fished seafood by 2050. And so on.  With all the bad news, there is still some good. This has been a great year or so for the creation of  marine reserves, also known as marine protected areas or ocean sanctuaries.  In just over a year’s time, roughly 1.3 million square miles of the ocean have been protected by new sanctuaries.

At the end of September 2014, President Obama created the world’s largest fully protected marine reserve in the central Pacific Ocean by broadening the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument from almost 87,000 square miles to more than 490,000 square miles.

In March of this year, the UK announced the creation of one of the world’s largest contiguous ocean reserve, setting aside 322,000 square miles (830,000 square kilometers) around the remote Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific for special protection.

At the end of September, the government of New Zealand announced that it would create a marine reserve of 240,000 square miles in the South Pacific Ocean, about 1000km north-east of New Zealand. 

In the beginning of October, the Chilean government announced that it has created the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, a marine reserve protecting an area of roughly 115,000 square miles.

Toward the end of October, the island nation of Palau established a marine reserve of about 193,000 square miles.

Why is this important? Because ocean sanctuaries work.  As noted by Greenpeace:

Scientists say it works, fishermen say it works, even governments say it works, so let’s get together to make it happen. That means politicians, businesses, fishermen, scientists, you, me and all our friends working together to create ocean sanctuaries – large areas where you don’t take anything, break anything or pollute anything. It is by far the most significant thing we can do to be the change we want for the seas.