The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, announced an additional 160,000 sq km of marine protected area on top of the country’s existing 120,000 sq km at Cop26 in Glasgow on Tuesday. The move comes amid growing clamour for action to protect rare marine species and commercial fish populations against foreign fishing fleets exploiting the region’s rich marine biodiversity, as well as to limit illegal, under-reported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by local fishing communities. Panama, Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica announced on Tuesday the creation of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) initiative, which would both join and increase the size of their protected territorial waters to create a fishing-free corridor covering more than 500,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles) in one of the world’s most important migratory routes for sea turtles, whales, sharks and rays. Four Pacific-facing Latin American nations have committed to joining their marine reserves to form one interconnected area, creating one of the world’s richest pockets of ocean biodiversity.
