Ambassador Moore, Secretary of State John Kerry speak in support of Ross Sea Marine Protected Area

Washington, D.C. (18 March 2013)

– New Zealand Ambassador to the United States, Rt Hon Mike Moore, and United States Secretary of State John Kerry will speak tonight in support of a joint New Zealand/United States proposal to establish the largest Marine Protected Area in the world in the Ross Sea. Ambassador Moore and Secretary Kerry will speak, alongside Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, at a reception at the National Geographic Museum ahead of the screening of the film „The Last Ocean by New Zealand filmmaker Peter Young.

At 2.27 million square kilometres (890,000 square miles), the MPA would be roughly three and a half times the size of Texas and almost nine times the size of New Zealand. It would include a 1.6 million square kilometre (612,000 square miles) no-take area: almost four times the size of California, and six times the size of New Zealand.

“We are very proud of the United States/New Zealand proposal for a Ross Sea Marine Protected Area (MPA),” said Ambassador Moore. "The proposed MPA, if agreed by the members of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources at its Special Meeting in Germany this July, would be the largest in the world." “Our joint proposal is born out of a shared commitment to protection of the Antarctic environment, " Ambassador Moore said. "It balances conservation, fishing and research interests, and represents the best chance of successfully establishing an MPA in this important region.”

Speech attached.
http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1303/Ambassador_Moore_Secretary_of_State_John_Kerry_speak_in_support_of_Ross_Sea_Marine_Protected_Area.pdf

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