Parc naturel marin de Mayotte - A 41-Member 'Parliament of the Sea' Governing a Double-Barrier-Reef Lagoon (France)

Created by decree on 18 January 2010 as France's fourth marine natural park, the Parc naturel marin de Mayotte extends across the whole of Mayotte's exclusive economic zone (about 69,000 km2), encompassing a 1,300 km2 lagoon enclosed by one of the world's few double barrier reefs -- a geological rarity shared with only a handful of other reef systems globally.

Governance runs through a 41-member 'conseil de gestion' -- administered by the French Office francais de la biodiversite (OFB) and popularly described as a 'parliament of the sea' -- representing five stakeholder categories: qualified experts, elected officials, environmental associations, recreational users and marine professionals, including artisanal fishers and pirogue builders. Under French law, the council's opinions on any permit likely to alter the marine environment are legally binding on public authorities, not merely advisory.

Within the lagoon, the park documents roughly 480 km2 of coral reef supporting some 250 coral species and over 600 fish species, alongside about 700 hectares of mangrove and a comparable area of seagrass. The lagoon hosts a resident population of dugongs, a breeding population of humpback whales, and nesting green and hawksbill turtles.

The park's protection has not resolved every pressure on the lagoon: a dedicated academic interview- and survey-based assessment of Mayotte's dugongs found the local population to be small and in decline, underscoring that formal marine-park status has not by itself reversed the fate of the lagoon's most vulnerable large species.