The most important place on earth that virtually no one has ever heard of is called the Saya de Malha Bank, which has been called the world’s largest invisible island. Situated in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Seychelles, more than 200 miles from land, the Bank extends over an area the size of Switzerland and is home to the world’s largest seagrass fields, which make it the planet’s most important carbon sink.
Text and video: Ian Urbina, Maya Martin, Joe Galvin, Susan Ryan, and Austin Brush – Editors at The Outlaw Ocean Project.
The Bank, which in some spots is barely hidden under 30-feet of water, offers an unprecedented diversity of seagrass habitats for turtles, along with breeding grounds for sharks, humpback whales, and blue whales.
Researchers say that the Bank is one of the least scientifically studied areas of the planet partly because of its remoteness. The area’s unpredictable depths have also meant that, over the centuries, merchant ships and explorers tended to avoid these waters. It has long been the type of fantastical realm so uncharted that on the old maps, it would be designated, ‘Here Be Monsters.’ More recently, though, the Bank is traversed by a diverse cast of characters, including shark finners, bottom trawlers, seabed miners, stranded fishers, starving crews, wealthy yachters, and libertarian seasteaders.
The tragedy, however, is that since the Saya de Malha Bank is mostly located in international waters, where few rules apply, its biodiversity is being systematically decimated by a huge fleet of industrial fishing ships that remain largely unchecked by government oversight. The Bank remains unprotected by any major binding treaties largely due to an anemia of political will by national authorities and a profits-now costs-later outlook on fishing interests.
The question now: who will safeguard this public treasure?
Editor’s note: Today marks the beginning of a series of publication we do in collaboration with The Outlaw Ocean Project, a non-profit journalistic organisation based in Washington D.C. that produces investigative articles on human rights, labour conditions and environmental issues at sea.
Through a series of articles, it reveals what happens out at sea when no government or international organisation is watching. How our common resources are exploited and how human rights are violated.
We will publish one new article/video every other day over the next few weeks, but everything will then remain on our website as usual.
Cover Photo: The Saya de Malha bank, which means “mesh skirt” in Portuguese, was named to describe the rolling waves of seagrass just below the surface. It is part of the mascarene plateau in the Indian Ocean and is one of the largest submerged banks in the world. (2022, Indian Ocean)
Credit: James Michel Foundation