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This is a fantastic initiative by David Miliband.  The UK is actually proposing to declare the largest marine protected area on Earth!  To protect coral reefs that are of equal importance to the Great Barrier Reef and deep ocean too.  Can you believe that?  I hope every RSPB member will write to Mr Miliband to tell him how important this initiative is and how he should definitely do it and provide the small amount of funding needed to make it effective.

I believe the Chagos islanders are still fighting for the right to return home.  We must stress that this initiative MUST NOT be used as a further excuse to deny them this right.

There is a bit here sounds awful where we depopulated to allow a US base.Can't help but think how I would feel to be kicked off my homelland.

HilaryJ: I don't think it will be. On the home page of the Chagos Conservation Trust they state that:

"Involving Chagos Islanders and others in the conservation is important. The creation of a protected area would clearly be without prejudice to the outcome of the pending legal case in regard to Chagos Islanders and the arrangements for the protected area could be modified if necessary in the light of any change in circumstances." http://www.chagos-trust.org/

Well having looked at the legal case it sounds absolutely horrendous.Seems these poor people described by various politicians as something along the lines as poor tarzans a man fridays(how politically correct is that)were more or less chased off of their Islands to allow the yanks to have a base which I believe Blair(he of weapons of mass destruction in forty minute fame)agreed to the yanks more or less keeping the base forever so we(grovel grovel)get cheaper nuclear weapons.Seems to me that the Islanders have won cases to return to the Islands but have never managed to repopulate them,even being harassed and chased to get them off.Sadly I think that anyone who believes the governments of USA and GB are likely to act honorably are very naive and these poor Islanders Have been treated as badly as almost any group of people.Wherever are the human rights people although of course the USA seems totally exempt from doing anything except invading other countries.    

There are some 4000 Chagossians and descendants who claim the right of return to their homeland.  Most of them are living in extreme poverty in the slums of Port Louis in Mauritius.  Giving menial jobs to a dozen or two of the men will not make things right.  

To get the people's attention, then-Governor of the Colony, Sir Bruce Greatbatch, ordered the extermination of the children's pet dogs on Diego Garcia, the largest island.  This was carried out by proud members of the United States Navy.  It is more than bizarre to read a cleaned-up history of these people's islands on a website devoted to the preservation of birds.  I love birds.  I also have some fondness for people.

The Foreign Secretary is not entirely at fault for this shameful episode in British history, having been six years old when the dogs were gassed.  He has, however, spent millions of Pounds preventing these people and their families from returning to the northern atolls, which are a hundred kilometers from the military base on Diego Garcia.  The compensation they were coerced into settling for may have been less than the Minister has spent to keep them in forced exile.  

Did I mention that the Chagossians are full British citizens?  The story is so shocking that it is difficult to believe.  To learn more, you may watch John Pilger's "Stealing a Nation", at video.google.com/videoplay

Wow Mark a bit of a Hornets nest here but at least we have all learnt quite a lot from what I think you meant as a innocent well meaning blog.I at least now know a relatively small amount about how badly the Chagossians(who I am sad to say didn't know existed)have suffered and shall try to follow what happens but I am afraid we should all be able to guess.Seems very similar to putting all native Red Indians in reservations.Seems they do these tricks rather well.  

Mark, you say (above) ". ...it's probably that lack of people which has helped keep the area so fantastically rich in wildlife..." I hope Island Bob has made you realise what a terribly high price some people were forced to pay for that richness of wildlife. Don't get me wrong, I like birds very much, but would the UK government treat the people of the Isle of Man the same way the Chagossians have been treated? And are still being treated?

HilaryJ is absolutely spot on in saying that this initiative must not be used as a further excuse to deny the Chagossians the right to return.  Everybody agrees on the need to protect this beautiful part of the planet - it's just that some of us believe that the actual protecting should be done by the indigenous people of the islands, a group of people who care about Chagos more than the rest of us can imagine.  The issues of environmental protection and resettlement should be talked about together, NOT as issues divorced from one another.

Indeed, part of the government's strategy to keep the Chagossians in exile has been to try and marginalise them as much as possible.  Anybody with an ounce of humanity should resist this, because every time the government criminally refuses to include the Chagossians in discussions on the future of Chagos, they succeed in furthering the myth that the issue of resettlement is somehow dead and buried.  Well, it isn't.  The Chagossians are a proud people who still want to return to their homeland and they will be fighting for this right for some time to come - including, most likely, in the European Court of Human Rights.

If the RSPB intends to respond to the FCO's consultation on this Marine Protection Area, then I would strongly urge them to include reference to the Chagossians in their representation.  Supporting the environmental protection of Chagos and supporting the Chagossians' right of return are not mutually exclusive, despite what the government might say.