Plans announced to establish first-of-its-kind marine protected area
Plans are underway to establish one of the world's largest marine protected areas—a key step toward the sustainable resettlement of a community removed from their homes on the Chagos Islands decades ago.
In early November 2025, the government of Mauritius announced its plans to maintain a ban on commercial fishing across an area of the Indian Ocean larger than France, once a sovereignty dispute over the region is resolved. Stanford University-led research and stakeholder meetings convened on campus helped inform the protected area's careful consideration and inclusion of traditional practices and fishing for local consumption.
"Up until now, the cultural aspects involved in negotiating regional sovereignty have been framed within a human rights context, which is extremely important," said Krish Seetah, associate professor of environmental social sciences and of oceans in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. "However, as we move forward, we can really use science in an effective way to bring Chagossian knowledge and regional cultural heritage to bear on ocean governance for the marine protected area."
The United Kingdom and the island nation of Mauritius have disputed the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago for decades. Despite granting independence to Mauritius in 1968, Britain continued to claim sovereignty over the archipelago, and forcibly removed the Chagossian people. Years of international pressure followed, including a UN tribunal ruling that Britain had illegally deprived Mauritius of fishing rights through the creation of a marine protected area around the Chagos Islands.
Britain agreed last year to return sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, but to maintain a joint UK–US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The timeline for return has been held up by debate within the British government and concern from some scientists about what the move would mean for conservation of fisheries and ecosystems.
In response, government officials from Mauritius, alongside a wide range of international partners, principally the Zoological Society of London, began negotiating a marine resource management plan for Chagos. As part of this process, Mauritius's former ambassador to the UN reached out to Seetah, who has worked with communities in Mauritius for years as part of Stanford's Mauritian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Project. A unique project was born.
Seetah leads a working group that brings together displaced Chagossian community members, scientists, government officials, and legal experts from multiple countries to better assess how to incorporate cultural knowledge and traditions into plans for a marine protected area.
Rob Dunbar, a co-principal investigator on the project and professor of oceans and of Earth system science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, brought decades of climate-based research in the region, effectively providing expertise for planning how to mitigate climate change risks as part of repatriation to these fragile island ecosystems.
Seetah, marine biologist Fiorenza Micheli, Earth system science postdoctoral scholar Josheena Naggea, and environment and resources Ph.D. student Eeshan Chaturvedi co-organized a conference in March 2025 that brought researchers, community groups, government officials, and practitioners from across the Indian Ocean region to Stanford to discuss the role of culture in securing a sustainable future for island communities.
"Facilitating a space wherein communities can shape policies and decisions about their land, ocean, values, practices, and livelihood should be the norm," Naggea said. "We are able to witness a powerful example of that through this work on the Chagos marine protected area."
Following the conference, Seetah and Micheli worked with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment to push stakeholders beyond academic discussion through an Uncommon Dialogue. The closed-door discussion encouraged open and candid debate on the processes of decolonization within environmental policymaking at the international level.
"We are people who have our tradition, our culture, and we want to preserve it," Chagos Refugee Group leader Olivier Bancoult told attendees at the 2025 Stanford Oceans Conference during a keynote address. Bancoult and five other members of the group traveled from Mauritius with support from a Doerr School of Sustainability engagement grant to attend the conference and discuss how to safeguard the rich cultural heritage of the region.
Using insights gleaned from Stanford researchers and others, Mauritius will establish the Chagos Archipelago Marine Protected Area (CAMPA) a new approach to ocean governance that explicitly integrates cultural considerations into marine protection. The area is divided into four zones, including a zone for resettlement of Chagossian community members and a zone where fishing would be permitted under sustainable quotas for artisanal, traditional, ceremonial, and subsistence purposes.
"Stanford has offered us an opportunity for individuals from a range of disciplines, but also government and NGO partners to come together in a way that allows neutrality and freedom of expression," Seetah said. "What's made this collaboration unique is the number of international colleagues that have come together in service not only of the cultural working group, but to the Chagossian community and government of Mauritius as well. There is a sense of being able to do academic research, but for the greater good of a community."
Provided by Stanford University
