Chile’s new Diego Ramírez-Drake Passage Marine Park will help protect Black-browed and Grey-headed Albatrosses

The Government of Chile announced earlier in the year the creation of a new 144 390-km² Marine Protected Area (MPA), to be known as the Diego Ramírez-Drake Passage Marine Park (Parque Marino Diego Ramírez y Paso Drake).  Located in the Magallanes Region, it is the southernmost park in South America.

The Diego Ramírez-Drake Passage Marine Park

The government decree grants legal protection to the submerged continental escarpment that drops into the Drake Passage off the southern coast of Chile, as well as to the Sars Seamount (Monte submarino Sars).  The marine park also includes the sub-Antarctic Diego Ramírez Islands (archipiélago Diego Ramírez), which support globally significant breeding populations of ACAP-listed Black-browed Thalassarche melanophris (Least Concern) and globally Endangered Grey-headed T. chrysostoma Albatrosses (click here).  Southern Giant Petrels (Least Concern) have also been reported breeding in the Diego Ramírez group.

Grey-headed Albatrosses on the Diego Ramírez, photograph by Graham Robertson

The Diego Ramírez-Drake Passage Marine Park is Chile’s 25th MPA.  Read about other Chilean MPAs that support breeding populations of ACAP-listed seabirds here.

Read more here and here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 06 March 2019