by Rasa Gustaitis, New America Media, USA - Even as it disappears under water, the Republic of Kiribati, a small oceanic nation that straddles the Equator about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, it has emerged, along with other tiny island nations, as the vanguard of a growing ocean conservation movement. Yet they have drawn networks of protection across enormous swatches of the high seas and hundreds of small coastal areas. Their power to do so lies in international law, which provides that every nation has sovereignty over resources within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which extends 200 nautical miles off its shores.