Credit: Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete
This southern area is home to 10% of the world’s blue whale population.
Chile’s Environment Ministry announced the creation of the New Tic Toc-Golfo Corcovado Marine Park, a maritime space measuring 1,019.16 square kilometers (393.5 square miles) which borders important protected areas on the mainland, such as Corcovado National Park.
This marine park in southern Chile will be key to protecting blue whales as this is an area used by them for breeding and feeding as they migrate from Antarctica to the Tropics by way of the Pacific Ocean.
The area has unparalleled biological richness because of its pristine condition and the high presence of krill, a type of crustacean that is the basis of the diet of these cetaceans and vital for their survival. Humpback and sei whales, Chilean dolphins, marine otters, sea lions and colonies of seabirds such as penguins, cormorants and shearwaters are also found in this area.
The new TicToc-Golfo Corcovado Marine Park measures 1,019.16 square kilometers (393.5 square miles) and borders important protected mainland environments, such as the Corcovado National Park to the East, Melimoyu National Park and the adjacent AMCP MU Pitipalena Añihué (Coastal Marine Protected Area) immediately to the south at the far end of the Aysén Region.
Credit: Eduardo Sorensen
This marine park area will be considered in a high protection category in order to ensure greater conservation success, so no fishing, aquaculture or intensive tourism will be allowed. While biodiversity conservation is the main focus of the protected marine areas, they also contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, providing nature-based solutions, as they fix carbon and increase the resilience of the sea to climate phenomena.
The TicToc-Golfo Corcovado Marine Park is part of the Pacific Corridor initiative the seeks to connect diverse species – like the blue whale – in a corridor from Alaska to Patagonia and to create an inter-hemispheric network of sea conservation. The project is enshrined in the “Americas for the Protection of the Ocean Declaration” proposed by Chile’s President, Gabriel Boric, with the aim of addressing the three major crises affecting the world today: climate change, biodiversity loss, and ocean degradation.
