Advice to the UK's foreign secretary David Miliband was clear. For 48 hours, memos flew from his officials, all advising him to hold back, take his time, consult and consider alternatives. He ignored them. The next day, five weeks before the 2010 election that would remove him from office, Miliband set up a giant marine protected area (MPA) covering 640,000 square kilometres of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), an area roughly the size of France. It meant a ban on fishing around the tiny islands of the Chagos archipelago, a leftover from the British Empire. Only Diego Garcia, an atoll with a massive US military base, was excepted.
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