Glittering fish amongst the coral. Seagrass meadows the size of Dorset. Rat-hunting giant drones. A fortnight ago at the Chagos Conservation Trust AGM, I was indulged again in views of paradise.
A world full of people has little room for wonder. The shores of the Indian Ocean are teeming with mankind, reshaping everything we touch into an artifice to serve out turn. A view of how nature can mature in the absence of man is a precious insight, and it is beautiful.
The islands are not wholly untouched: rubbish washes up on these shores from the seas around – the ocean is filling up with the detritus cast off from fishing boats, the packed coastlands of India, Ceylon and Sumatra, the foulness of Thilafushi Island (and discarded Starships). Inevitably it poisons fish, snares turtles and washes up even on what should be the pristine islands of the Chagos Archipelago. The giant drones dropping poison on rats (another legacy of man) have also been carrying off heaving sacks of rubbish from the beaches.
Paradise does not maintain itself. Fishing boat prowl, awaiting a gap in the Royal Navy’s vigilance, to strip the reefs of fish and dump more rubbish overboard; rats and introduced invasive species need to be cleared. Even a thousand miles of ocean are not a wall against the outside world, alas.
Into this role comes the Chagos Conservation Trust. Their surveys and statistics teach us and instruct us. Their work teams strive to restore natural balance. The one clean part of a tortured ocean depends on such work. The preservation of the islands relies on the Marine Conservation Area – if that is removed, or not enforced, the world will fall upon the islands in its foulness, never to be restored.
