New Zealand and Chile will partner together to help protect vulnerable seabirds, including the critically endangered Antipodean albatross.
An arrangement was signed today by New Zealand and Chilean ministers in Auckland, where Chilean President Sebastián Piñera and Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero are visiting.
It establishes a partnership between the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries in New Zealand, and Chile's Undersecretariat of Fisheries and Aquaculture and Ministry of Environment.
It aims to protect seabirds from dying in international fishing operations, including the Antipodean albatross, which breeds in New Zealand's remote Subantarctic Islands and is listed as "nationally critical" by the Department of Conservation.
Since 2004, the albatross population has been declining at a rate of 6 per cent a year for males and 12 per cent a year for females, and the population may disappear within 20 years.