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Chagos News Issue The Periodical Newsletter of the Chagos Conservation Trust and Chagos Conservation Trust US No 46 June 2015 ISSN 2046 7222 Others, who have never been to Chagos, Editorial announce in confidant tones, about the place being radioactive as a result of the Chagos is, as you might imagine, a great military being there, or covered in Agent target for conspiracy theorists - with its Orange. They declare that the military isolation, military installation and have polluted the place and destroyed the Chagossian history. The internet is, of natural resources of Diego Garcia. I guess course, such an easy way for people to that they know this by some sort of promulgate the most ridiculous and bizarre divination! ideas, and a trawl through some of these is very amusing - but also worrying that But the facts are unfortunately less people with no information about interesting. something can expound so freely on it and may be taken in by many others. It seems that some prefer to believe a good fairy tale than more mundane facts! Some of these fantastical stories regarding Chagos are so outrageous that they are actually quite funny. For example after the 2004 tsunami there were reports that Diego Garcia a) had some sort of anti tsunami protection around it, ranging from a force field to a steel wall, b) knew about it in advance but didn't deign to tell the rest of the Indian Ocean countries and, c) was entirely washed away by the tsunami. And these weren't even the most stupid ones - some involve aliens for example. Then there is the claim that the tragic missing Malaysian Airlines plane MH370 was forced to go to Diego Garcia by the The 2004 tsunami did sweep over parts of CIA or, more recently, that it could have some islands in the atolls, but because of safely landed on Danger Is, Eagle Is or the deep water and steep slopes Nelsons Is. So many people tragically lost surrounding the islands, it was not the is no laughing matter, but the ideas of disaster that it was elsewhere, although a some idiots...! whole batch of bird eggs were lost on one island inspected. An article describing the effects of the tsunami is in Chagos News 25 1 The truth about MH370 may never be not too long after Silent Spring after all, known, but it certainly never landed in but all actions which may affect the Diego Garcia - I was there at the time. No environment are now scrutinised for one has produced any evidence to show decades by the BIOT conservation that the plane went to Diego Garcia but advisor, along with a team permanently in hey, who wants evidence to spoil a good place working for the US Navy. Charles story. And of course anyone who knows Sheppard worked on this, succeeding the the islands would laugh at the idea that a late John Topp who started so much of the large passenger plane (or even a small present environmental work, and now his one) could ever land on one of the islands. place is filled by Mark Spalding, who is carrying on giving that advice for BIOT. It is difficult to see how people who have never been to Diego Garcia and who are It would be very unwise to think that any not in possession of any data can have community, living entirely from the islands, any 'facts' about 'pollution' and 'damage to would not have a significant impact on the the ecosystem'. Detailed analyses of atolls. The islands of Diego Garcia and the seawater for contaminants has revealed previously inhabited islands in the that it is the cleanest seawater on the northern planet. It has a healthy coral community atolls (as far as warming from climate change were allows) and, despite a recreational fishery and being outside the MPA, Diego Garcia has as high a fish biomass as the best managed marine protected area elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. The planet has been impacted everywhere by humans to some degree or another. Places which are inhabited are impacted more than those which are not - no one can question that. So, although the military presence there has had an impact, heavily the ecological footprint of the military in impacted Diego Garcia is mostly felt in and in plantation absorbed by the US and its allies in the days. But the saving grace for Diego East Indies. This is because virtually Garcia is that the majority of the impact everything required to build and maintain from the personnel is in the US. the base originates there, and all inorganic waste is recycled back to industrialised There are definitely important discussions points of origin. The impact on the atoll to be had about Chagos. It is important to has long been minimal which is why Diego stick to verified information and not Garcia is the least polluted and least spoilt spurious, unverified and, frankly, made up, inhabited atoll in the world - shown by 'facts'. Unfortunately I am quite sure that analyses of huge amounts of samples we will hear more wild claims being made over many years. Sometimes the writers in the future. Today though, the threats do have the data, but don't seem to come from any lack of vigilance in understand it. conserving the archipelago, and from climate change. This year, for example, It is no secret that in the 1970s the military has seen a heavy bleaching event did remove coral rock from sections of the throughout the area and beyond, which is reef flat. They called them 'borrow pits', likely attributed to climate change. and you do wonder when they might be going to pay them back! Many places at We wait and see. that time were guilty of such environmentally stupid actions, this was Anne Sheppard 2 There is a new exhibition on coral reefs at the Natural History Museum in London, and Chagos gets to play a small part in it, with many of the specimens being shown coming from there, as part of a collection made in the late 1970s and donated to the museum by Charles and Anne Sheppard. There is also an information board about the BIOT MPA. The exhibition website is at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/coral -reefs-secret- cities-of-the -sea-exhibition.html with an amusing video showing the theme of the exhibition is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zv2 -ksPSg Also, there is a very useful schools teaching guide available to download in PDF format, with a lot of interesting ways to get more out of the exhibition. It is available to download at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/ The exhibition has one of the most beautiful content/dam/nhmwww/ coral reef aquaria and there is an online video Schools/teaching- of the making of the aquarium at resources/corals- http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/coral-reefs- learning-guide.pdf exhibition-aquarium.html The book to accompany the exhibition was written by CCT trustee Anne Sheppard, which also has a bit about Chagos in it. The book is £12.99 and is available in the museum shop or from Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coral-Reefs- Secret-Cities- Sea/dp/0565093568/ref=sr_1_1?s=book s&ie=UTF8&qid=1433681631&sr=1- 1&keywords=coral+reefs+secret+cities+ 3 of+the+sea Award of a grant to CCT can benefit from it and incorporate it into their own scientific planning and work. Charles Sheppard Thus ChIP was conceived. The wealth of data collected in the Chagos Archipelago We are delighted to record that we have over the past four decades is increasing been given a substantial grant from the fast, and currently is scattered in John Ellerman Foundation towards academic papers, government reports, developing our Chagos Information Portal unpublished data, and photo and video – ChIP for short. ChIP was started a year libraries of individual researchers. ChIP ago with a grant of £20,000 from CCT, will inform scientific research and and that phase is now almost completed conservation, facilitate BIOTA’s decision with the development of the core database making about matters of environmental structure, which will be made available management in Chagos, and foster public very soon. The purpose of ChIP is to stewardship. Every new expedition will record in one place all scientific data or add to the shared knowledge base to information on where it can be found (or strengthen it. This is becoming especially as much as is possible) in one online site. important now, given the very welcome It is not so much a website (despite being and necessary surge in scientific online) as a scientific database for information that is becoming available for scientists, managers and the general this area. public. In the first year, much progress has been made in compiling a solid core The John Ellerman Foundation has of the information as well as the ‘engine’ to generously granted CCT over £80,000 to work it. The next stage is for volunteers to be spent over three years to hugely test that, and then release it. augment this start. It will allow improvement of many aspects and This online relational database is expansion from the present core and eventually intended to store and provide a sometimes rather limited ‘trial’ material near-complete record of previous and which forms the initial, working database current research in Chagos. It has dealt in the system. It will permit the addition of with the ongoing and past research very much more scientific information, projects there, while results of all future including identification guides, coral trait projects will be deposited by the data, reef ‘sensitivity’ details and maps, researchers themselves.
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