UK Chagos Marine Protected Area no longer recognised

Parliamentarians in both the House of Commons and the Lords have recently praised the Marine Protected Area that was created in 2010 by the United Kingdom and claimed that the return of the Chagos to Mauritius will imperil the protection of the islands and their biodiversity.

That myth needs to be dispelled. 

Regardless of arguments as to whether the UK Chagos MPA has been effective over the last 15 years, the inescapable fact is that it is no longer recognised on the world stage. The leading source of information on MPAs is the Marine Protection Atlas. The UK Chagos MPA is not included on the Atlas page (see above). Likewise the UK Chagos MPA is not listed in the IUCN/UNEP/WCPA  Protected Planet Report 2024 - see e.g., Figure 4.

Sole reference to it can be found on the Old Atlas Website:

"The status of Chagos is currently unclear since the ruling by a UN tribunal in March 2015 that found that the British Government did not act legally when it established the MPA in Chagos.  The ruling, which was made under the 1982 United Nations convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) to which the UK is a signatory, is binding. It torpedoes the status of the MPA and orders the UK and Mauritius to renegotiate".  

Despite this, the UK has since 2015 prevaricated and made no meaningful attempt to renegotiate.

The loss of status of the MPA is one of the realities that the Government has to face as a result of legal decisions in international courts and tribunals. In this case it was a binding decision that cannot be avoided. Ministers have not yet pointed this out in Parliamentary debates. 

The Mauritian MPA will be legal and will incorporate Chagossian rights

The Mauritian proposal for its Chagos Archipelago Marine Protected Area (CAMPA) will establish a lawful Marine Protected Area which incorporates Chagossian rights. It is the only way forward to ensure future protection of the environment. If the UK was to try to maintain its control of the islands its MPA would soon become unenforceable and open to further legal challenge. 

Under the Treaty the UK has undertaken to assist Mauritius in implementing CAMPA.