The 2,900-Kilometre Mountain Range Nobody Owns

The Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges form a 2,900-kilometre chain of over 200 seamounts stretching from off Chile to Rapa Nui, with exceptionally high endemism: many of the fish and invertebrates on these peaks live on that ridge and nowhere else. Researchers at ESMOI, the Millennium Nucleus based at the Universidad Católica del Norte in Coquimbo, have spent years documenting the ridges and building the scientific case for protecting them, working alongside Oceana Chile, Conservation International and Pew in a coalition aimed at the high seas portion. Chile has protected the parts within its own waters through the Nazca-Desventuradas and Juan Fernández marine parks, but more than 73% of the ridge system lies beyond national jurisdiction where bottom fishing and prospective mining are unregulated. Deep-submersible surveys along the Nazca Ridge have since confirmed thriving cold-water coral reefs and around twenty candidate new species across ten seamounts, strengthening the case for one of the first marine protected areas under the new High Seas Treaty.