Chagos Marine Protected Area

Chagos Marine Protected Area is a marine protected area in the central Indian Ocean, within the British Indian Ocean Territory, covering approximately 70 small islands and seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago. Established by the British government on 1 April 2010, it covers 640,000 square kilometers of ocean, one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, and includes the Great Chagos Bank, the largest coral atoll in the world, along with about 220 coral species and more than 784 fish species, and provides nesting habitat for endangered sea turtles. The designation has been contentious: the Chagossian people were removed from the archipelago before its creation, and on 18 March 2015 the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled the marine protected area unlawful under international law, finding that Mauritius retains binding fishing rights and eventual sovereignty over the archipelago, and its status remains under negotiation between the British and Mauritian governments. It is funded by the British government with support from the Chagos Trust. Its own IUCN protected area category is not stated in the source consulted; it is classified here as a Habitat and Species Management Area on general classification knowledge as a disclosed low-confidence closest fit.