How a marine reserve could make Pitcairn the crown jewel of the South Pacific

Last week, while the Mayor of London (pop. 7.8 million) was visiting China, the Deputy Mayor of Pitcairn (pop. 50) was visiting London.  I met Simon Young for afternoon tea in a riverside restaurant near the Tower of London.  Both he, and a fellow member of the Pitcairn Council, Mrs Melva Evans, had travelled thousands of miles to Britain with one specific purpose: to persuade the Government to designate a vast area around the Pitcairn Islands as a marine reserve.

Most of us, I suppose, know the Pitcairn Islands as the place where the mutineers from the Bounty settled, with their Tahitian companions, in 1790.  The majority of the current population are their direct descendants. If Pitcairn was a pretty remote place at the end of the 18th Century, it remains so today.  There is no airport.  The supply vessel, MV Claymore II, visits once every three months. The island’s website enticingly adds:  ‘if you have a yacht, come pay us a visit’, but the reality is that Pitcairn is 2325 kilometres east of Tahiti and about 2000 kilometres west of Easter Island, and there is nothing but ocean in between.