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consciousness that protection can yield greater and
more enduring financial and social benefits than
traditional exploitation.
In August 2012, I witnessed leaders from 16 Pacific
Island nations gather in the Cook Islands for their
43rd annual meeting to discuss topics of mutual
concern, including sea-level rise, declining fish
stocks and growing dependence on imported fossil
fuels and tourism revenue. The Cook Islands has a
population of 20,000 people who live on 15 islands,
which together have a landmass slightly larger than
that of Washington, D.C. Their ocean mass, however,
occupies more than a million square miles.
In late August, Henry Puna, the charismatic prime
minister of that country, announced the creation of
a 424,000-square-mile protected area encompassing
most of the southern Cook Islands, an area bigger
than France and Germany. He observed, “The marine
park will provide the necessary framework to promote
sustainable development by balancing economic
growth interests such as tourism, fishing and deep
sea mining with conserving core biodiversity in
the ocean … a contribution from the Cook Islands
to the wellbeing of not only our peoples, but also
of humanity.” New Caledonia, too, announced its
intention to create a marine park covering more than
half a million square miles of ocean.
Prior to the meeting of island leaders, I
accompanied a small group from Conservation
International (CI) for several days of diving around
Aitutaki, one of the atolls of the Cook Islands.
We were thrilled with our repeated encounters
of a Napoleon wrasse, a large and spectacularly
ornamented fish. Valued in Asian markets as
delicacies (especially their large lips), the once-
common species is now extremely rare. We were also
pleased, but sad, to see a shark. We saw just one in
a part of the ocean that should have had hundreds.
My dive buddy, Greg Stone, leader of CI’s marine
program and an ocean policy strategist, has worked
closely with President Tong, Prime Minister Puna
and other island leaders to foster a grand vision for an
integrated “oceanscape,” a concept based on the cooperation
of all the region’s island nations toward the goal of protecting
their shared ocean assets. The presence or absence of sharks
and other large fish are good indicators of reef productivity.
“Healthy reefs need sharks, and sharks need healthy reefs,”
Stone noted. “Both are worth more alive than dead.”
Linking “natural capital” to human prosperity and
continued survival is an idea whose time came too late to
save Steller’s sea cows, Caribbean monk seals, great auks
and gray whales in the Atlantic Ocean, and it may be too
late for many other species and systems now on the edge of
oblivion. But it is not too late to restore some of the world’s
damaged reefs, mangroves and marshes and to make the blue
planet safer, healthier and more resilient. Lucky us: We are
residents of Earth, the sweetest place in the universe, at this,
the sweetest time.
AD
STEPHEN FRINK
STEPHEN FRINK
SHAWN HEINRICHS
