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[California Study Center]
The base will allow the international science community to study and improve knowledge of the massive, recently established marine reserve, one of the largest in the world.
In an article at the Pitcairn Islands Study Center at Pacific Union College in the San Francisco Bay Area of northern California, it is noted that the scientists or scientific organizations applying to use the Base must observe areas of safety. including health safety, chemical safety, and radiological safety.
Users of the base must also demonstrate care in the use of equipment, of drones, of remotely-operated submersible vehicles, of vessels; and they must also give care to waste management.
“Visiting researchers should respect and acknowledge local knowledge and traditions, and be capable of engaging with personnel and other Pitcairn islanders in the spirit of mutual co-operation. It may be necessary to acknowledge and seek permission to obtain and/or use certain local knowledge provided by members of the Pitcairn Island community. A framework for doing so should be agreed upon,” the article states.
Also noted are several multilateral environmental agreements and conventions that have been ratified by the United Kingdom on behalf of the Pitcairn Islands, which users of the base must consider in their study of the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve.
Though minuscule in size – about one mile wide by two miles long – Pitcairn Island is world famous by virtue of it becoming the hiding place of British sailors turned mutineers in 1790. Sailors on the ship H.M.S. Bounty mutinied against their captain, William Bligh, and afterward had to find a hiding place to escape British justice for the act. The refuge they found was Pitcairn Island. Their presence on the island was unknown to the world for nearly two decades.
In the 1930s, books about the mutiny, as well as Hollywood-type motion pictures, opened the story of the mutiny on the Bounty and its aftermath to millions of readers and viewers throughout the world.
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