Revillagigedo Marine Park Extension
Roca Partida, Revillagigedo © Blanca González
Pelagios Kakunjá informed and designed the largest marine reserve in North America: the Revillagigedo National Park.
Our studies showed that sharks moved well beyond the 6 nautical miles of protection around each island and between the islands of the original Revillagigedo Archipelago Biosphere Reserve. Using shark movements, we proposed an expansion of 40 nautical miles around each island, including a large rectangle (polygon) surrounding the whole area (Figure 1), and recommended it as a new marine protected area in the Mexican Pacific.
Figure 1. Design of the new marine park for the Revillagigedo Archipelago
The first design of the expanded marine reserve that we proposed was sent to the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) in 2014. Then it was included in the UNESCO Heritage site documentation in 2015, which was prepared by Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas (GECI), Pelagios, and members of the Advisory Council of the old Biosphere Reserve (Figure 2).
Finally, national and international organizations like Beta Diversidad, Pew Charitable Trusts, Mission Blue and others, carried out the policy work to push for the creation of the Revillagigedo National Park in 2017.
Figure 2. Revillagigedo World Heritage Site UNESCO
The signing of the decree of the new national park was held in Mexico City on Nov. 24th, 2017. We were invited to this important event, sharing great moments with all the parties involved and celebrating with Dr. Sylvia A. Earle (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Sylvia Earle and James Ketchum during the signing of the decree ceremony
The National Park has an extension of 148,000 km2 (14,807,977 hectares), which includes the land area of all islands of the archipelago -Roca Partida, San Benedicto, Socorro and Clarion-, and a large expanse of marine area, all of it a no-take zone. Today is the largest marine protected area of North America.
Silky Shark © Fred Buyle
Giant Manta © Fred Buyle
Blog publication date: February 19, 2020
Updated: November 27, 2021