Paris - Part of a long undersea mountain range between Iceland and the Azores is to be given official protected status, creating one of the largest protected marine areas in the world, the 15 member nations of the OSPAR Commission for the protection of the North-East Atlantic said Friday.

The WorldWide Fund for Nature (WWF) said it was a "historic decision" to designate the northern section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) a High Seas Marine Protected Area.

The decision was taken during a conference in the western French city of Brest.

The WWF described the area in question as "a haven for corals, sponges and other species living attached to rocky surfaces, as well as for fish, whales and sharks that feed or spawn by the shallower peaks, or use the canyons and depressions as refuge."

In addition, in a few areas the MAR is cut through by deep east- west trenches, the deepest being the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone.

"These trenches provide the only routes through which deep sea species can migrate from the abyssal plain on one side of the ridge to the other," the WWF said.

Some of the peaks in the mountain chain rise as much as 3,500 metres above the ocean floor.

Designating the 300,000-square-kilometre area a Marine Protected Area will prohibit certain forms of fishing that can damage the rocky surfaces and threaten endangered fish species. (dpa)