UN approves landmark ocean treaty. Photo: AFP / Colin Simpfendoreer/Simon Fraser University/James Cook University
Papua New Guinea has announced the establishment of two new marine protected areas (MPA) off the east coast of New Ireland Province.
It covers 16,000 square kilometres, double the reserved marine area of what previously existed in PNG.
The local team from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been directly involved in the setting up of the MPA over the past seven years.
Local spokesperson for the WCS Annisah Sapul said in New Ireland "a lot of the coastal communities are heavily dependent on fisheries resources.
"We've seen an increase in a lot of other threats that are imposing on the fisheries," she said.
"So one would be like population increase, some threats could be with unsustainable fishing, and also natural threats, such as climate change.
"We've seen that these have contributed to declines in the fisheries resources that communities have access to in these area as well."
Sapul believes it is a huge achievement getting the government to agree to the MPA.
"This is a big area of coverage for marine protected areas. It's like triple the size of where we've been working in.
"So having a larger area, larger seascape of management, we would see that there is more opportunity for different species to now thrive within the management space."
Sapul said there would be no commercial fishing in the zone but local communities could still feed themselves from the resource.
"The establishment of the protected area was in consultation with the community members, the local people."
She said the communities helped draw up the management plans for the MPA.
Sapul is confident the MPAs will also create havens for a lot of endangered species.
"The focus is coastal fisheries, but it's also looking at critically endangered species like turtles, dugongs, there'll be mammals like dolphins and whales, and then also sharks and rays within the space of the MPA," she added.