Cruising in protected areas + HOW THE RULES BENEFIT SAILORS
ELAINE BUNTING has sailed across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans and is the former editor of Yachting World
Once, our seas glimmered with dense shoals of herring, the ‘silver darlings’ pursued by a huge fishing fleet around our northern coasts. Pilchards were so plentiful off the coast of Cornwall that an industry was built on them. Industrialisation steadily changed that, but it was really only when people began exploring underwater that the full effects could be seen.
Below the surface, it was possible to study the lifecycles of marine organisms and appreciate their vast variety. It became starkly obvious how easily these fragile habitats could be damaged, and a movement started to protect marine environments that continues today.
FIONA CROUCH, a keen conservationist, went to New Zealand back in 1986, to volunteer at a marine reserve. It had been established in 1971 through the vision of Bill Ballantine, a marine biologist who had emigrated from the UK. Ballantine had proposed a strict ‘no-take’ marine reserve at Cape Rodney-Okakari Point. It was to become the first official marine reserve in the world.
The idea was a pioneering one, but scientists around the world were already seeing the need to protect species and habitats. In the UK, Britain’s first marine reserve was set up the same year, 1971, around Lundy in the Bristol Channel.
Other countries followed suit, and by 1985, there were more than 430 reserves around the world, albeit covering mainly small coastal areas. By the 1990s virtually every coastal country had one or more marine reserves. Yet many
