Chile surpasses 50% ocean protection with the world’s third-largest fully protected marine zone

Seventy-two percent of the fish species living around Chile’s Juan Fernández islands exist nowhere else on Earth — and as of March 2026, their home gained one of the most sweeping Chile ocean protection designations in history. President Gabriel Boric signed a decree shielding more than half the country’s national waters from industrial fishing, seabed mining, and extraction. The action came one day before Boric left office, and nearly two decades after a small island community began pushing for it.

• Roughly 140,000 square miles of ocean around the Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks received full protection in a single presidential decree signed March 10, 2026.
• Once implemented, Chile’s fully protected zone will rank as the third largest in the world, behind only the Ross Sea in Antarctica and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaii.
• Fewer than 1,000 people live on the Juan Fernández islands — and their community, which has managed a lobster fishery sustainably since 1890, drove the proposal forward.

The signing took place just one day before Boric handed over the presidency. It marked the end of a community-led campaign stretching back nearly 20 years, supported by a coalition of international conservation organizations.

What the new protected zone actually covers

The decree grants full protection to approximately 140,000 square miles of ocean surrounding two existing marine parks: the Juan Fernández Marine Park and the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park. Those parks already covered roughly 224,000 square miles of protected water. The new designation dramatically strengthens what protection means across that entire zone — prohibiting all extraction, including industrial fishing, seabed mining, and drilling.

Once fully implemented, Chile’s combined fully protected area will stretch to approximately 365,000 square miles. That puts it third in the world among fully protected marine zones. Only the Ross Sea and Papahānaumokuākea cover more ground.

A small community behind a very large win

The Juan Fernández Archipelago sits about 415 miles off Chile’s central Pacific coast. Fewer than 1,000 people live there, most of them on Robinson Crusoe Island, and most of them supported this expansion.

That community has sustained its lobster fishery for more than 130 years. In late 2024, residents submitted a formal proposal to the Chilean government calling for full protection of the surrounding ocean. Their plan identified growing threats from industrial fishing fleets, marine pollution, and potential seabed mining.

The Organización Comunitaria Funcional Mar de Juan Fernández led the effort. They worked alongside Blue Marine Foundation, Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, Island Conservation, and Fundación Patagonia Azul to build the case. Decades of demonstrated sustainable fishing gave their proposal unusual credibility with the government.

Pablo Manríquez Angulo, the mayor of Robinson Crusoe Island, said the designation protects the culture and traditions of the islands — not just the marine life. The new fully protected status prohibits all forms of extraction across 140,000 square miles of the South Pacific.

For the islanders, that prohibition is a shield against the threats they have watched approaching: industrial fleets, ocean acidification, and the accelerating effects of climate change on the waters they depend on every day.

A refuge for species found nowhere else on Earth

The Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas islands sit atop an underwater mountain chain in the South Pacific. That isolation has produced something remarkable: 72% of the fish species in these waters live nowhere else on the planet.

Among the wildlife now better protected are the Juan Fernández fur seal, the Juan Fernández lobster, the Juan Fernández octopus, dolphins, endangered sea turtles, and numerous seabird species. Whales and migratory fish such as swordfish and horse mackerel also pass through these waters regularly.

Losing these ecosystems would mean losing species with no backup habitat anywhere on Earth.

Chile ocean protection leads the way on the global 30×30 goal

The new marine protected area aligns with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the international agreement calling on nations to protect at least 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030. Chile didn’t just meet that target — it more than doubled it in a single action.

Less than 10% of the global ocean currently has meaningful, enforced protection. That gap makes Chile’s action all the more significant. Dan Crockett, Executive Director of Blue Marine Foundation, said the world would be on track to protect far more than 30% of the ocean by 2030 if every country matched what Chile just did.

Real challenges remain. Implementation, long-term enforcement, and sustained funding will determine whether these protections hold. Monitoring an area this vast and remote will require ongoing government commitment — and co-governance structures that keep the local community at the center.

But the community of Juan Fernández has demonstrated that local knowledge, long-term thinking, and political persistence can move large institutions. A population smaller than many American high schools helped protect one of the largest stretches of ocean on Earth.

That is not a small thing.

This story was originally reported by Oceanographic Magazine.