Wildlife of the Chagos islands

The Chagos archipelago is a group of 55 tropical islands over half a million square kilometres in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about 300 miles south of the Maldives. They have belonged to Britain since they were captured from France in 1814 during the Napoleonic Wars Photograph: Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk The archipelago boasts the world's largest coral atoll and the world's cleanest, most pristine waters, that are home to at least 220 coral species and more than 1,000 species of fish Photograph: Dan Jones/Zoological Society of London Photograph: Dan Jones/guardian.co.uk The underwater landscape of 6,000m deep trenches, oceanic ridges and sea mounts, is also a refuge and breeding ground for large and important populations of sharks, dolphins, marine turtles, rare crabs, birds and other vulnerable species Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk With 554,000 sq km of reef, the territory would become the largest protected marine area on Earth Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk Sea fans are abundant on Chagos reefs. Nine conservation and scientific organisations including the Marine Conservation Society, the RSPB, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew have formed the Chagos Environment Network (CEN), which is campaigning to protect the biodiversity of the Chagos islands and surrounding waters alongside a three-month public consultation (pdf) launched by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in November 2009 Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk Pollutant levels in Chagos waters are exceptionally low because of minimal human influence. Since the 1960s the islands have been set aside for defence purposes, with no inhabitants except for the military personnel and civilian contractors at the US military base on Diego Garcia Photograph: Dan Jones/Zoological Society of London Photograph: Dan Jones/guardian.co.uk A nurse shark. The islands are a refuge and breeding ground for large and important populations of sharks Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk Because of minimal human impact, the ecosystems of the Chagos have so far proven resilient to climate change and have been largely immune from threats to other reefs worldwide Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk But the Chagos Conservation Trust, a member of the CEN, says legal and illegal fishing has impacted the area despite regulations, with sharks, sea cucumbers, turtles and fish known to have declined Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk A masked booby colony. Over 150,000 pairs of 17 species of seabirds breed on the atolls, and protection of the islands would certainly improve their prospects Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk A lack of inhabitants means the islands are rat-free, and full of nesting birds Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/guardian.co.uk Ground nesting birds are vulnerable in most places. Here they can nest and raise their young in safety Photograph: Anne and Charles Sheppard/Chagos Conservation Trust Diego Garcia atoll. If done in the right way, the Chagos protected area could be as important as the reserves which protect the Galapagos islands and Great Barrier Reef Photograph: John Parker/Corbis Photograph: John Parker/guardian.co.uk