{"id":309720,"date":"2026-01-29T12:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T12:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/309720\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T12:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T12:15:16","slug":"chagos-islands-pristine-ecology-must-be-protected-chagos-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/309720\/","title":{"rendered":"Chagos Islands\u2019 pristine ecology must be protected | Chagos Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ending the pristine state of the Chagos region is arguably a greater loss of biodiversity than the extinction of the dodo, yet is often neglected in discussions of the transfer to Mauritius (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/20\/what-are-chagos-islands-uk-mauritius-explainer\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What are the Chagos Islands \u2013 and why is the UK returning them to Mauritius?, 20 January<\/a>). No other large tropical ecosystem on Earth has been so well protected, and its value to the science of ecology is correspondingly immense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">It is not species richness or abundance that singles the Chagos out: it is the ecosystem\u2019s near-natural functioning. Mauritian plans for fishing and other exploitation are not compatible with protection of the last great tropical wilderness area \u2013 which is currently teaching us how to repair and protect others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">If politicians could vote to save the dodo, one hopes they would. Yet watching them voting for a legacy of irreversible destruction means any future claims they make regarding biodiversity conservation will ring as hollow as a dodo\u2019s bones.<br \/><strong>Clive Hambler<\/strong><br \/>Lecturer in biological and human sciences, University of Oxford<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"><strong> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/jan\/28\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>email<\/strong><\/a><strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>letters<\/strong><\/a><strong> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ending the pristine state of the Chagos region is arguably a greater loss of biodiversity than the extinction&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[18,440,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-309720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115978340203158542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}