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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

This sounds like a great idea.

I'd also like to see sections of ocean protected like we protect our national parks. No fishing, no motorized boats. Sort of make them "reservoirs" where natural life can be undisturbed.

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Some countries like New Zealand and Australian have these - called Marine Reserves and limit commercial activities. They normally are in areas of great diversity (Milford Sounds) or international importance (great barrier reef).

or, like here in Perth, just off the coast of a major city.

There's a lot of local controversy because people believe that sharks living in the protected reserves are a danger to the people swimming off the city's beaches.

But politically this sort of conservation is very fragile. It's fine as long as no-one with any power wants to do anything profitable in the protected areas. But previous governments have caved in easily under commercial pressure.

Human activities are just as much a part of natural life on Earth as any other species'.

It's also a human activity to restrict human activities so that they don't interfere in undesirable ways with non-human activities. All natural of course.

I mean, I'm totally for trashing the environment when we don't need it anymore, but right now it's species-wide suicide.

We can easily be a destructive part of that natural life with aggressive trawling and the like.

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