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Amelia Earhart / Mysteries / Movie Travel / History Travel / Aviation / Aviation Travel / → All Tags

Only the Coconut Crabs Really Know Where Amelia Earhart Is

Just as a biopic of her life is released, a group of researchers claim to have found the spot in the western Pacific where Amelia Earhart disappeared on an attempted round-the-world flight in 1937. As the Discovery Channel points out, the awkwardly-acronymed The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) said it has evidence that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on a coral atoll called Nikumaroro - part of the Phoenix Islands, Kiribati - and became castaways and eventually succumbed to disease, thirst, hunger, or injury.

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South Pacific / Environment / Green Travel / Islands / Marine Parks / → All Tags

Good News for Marine Life: The Phoenix Islands Protected Area

A giant reef in the South Pacific has gotten a major reprieve. The island nation of Kiribati has created the world's largest protected marine reserve, and it's about the size of California:

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, covering 410,500 square kilometers, is one of the planet's last intact coral archipelagos and is threatened by over-fishing and climate change, [environmental] groups say.

It lies near the equator about half way between Fiji and Hawaii.

This new reserve is bigger than the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument west of Hawaii (137,797 square miles) and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (345,000 sq km.)

The US-based group Conservation International, along with the New England Aquarium, is helping the Kiribati government to manage and fund the uninhabited area. A tough challenge for the reserve is coastal erosion, but the site is also overfished and thus the Kirbati government will need some money for surveillance.

So get out your wallets people! No, just kidding. We don't think this place is taking donations but we wonder... is it taking tourists?

Related Stories:
· Kiribati Creates World's Largest Marine Reserve [Reuters]
· South Pacific coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: DS355]