Latest MPA News Articles

With first-hand reports from ten MPA practitioners worldwide:

• We must be laser-focused on actions to keep our institutions and work afloat, by Nirmal Jivan Shah
• Adapting on the fly to staffing and program challenges, by Emma Doyle
• MPA monitoring organization loses its volunteers and financial base, by Alan Kavanagh
• Long-term financial management of Dutch Caribbean MPAs will need to change, by Kalli De Meyer
• This is an opportunity for governments to help fishermen support MPAs, by Javier Corcuera Quiroga
• Success of MPAs depends on support from stakeholders, whose priorities may be changing, by Özkan Anil
• MPA that relies on yacht tourism revenue is optimistic for a rebound, by Joseph Ierna, Jr.
• Conducting fish surveys during this quiet time to understand the impact of people on MPAs, by Ruthy Yahel and Simon Nemtzov
• Partnering with law enforcement for increased patrols, by Claire Arre
• This challenge is likely to be harder than any before, by Sibylle Riedmiller

Journal article

• Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on biodiversity conservation – click here

MPA cases

• How researchers are studying the 0.4-km² Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve in Hawai`i, where daily visitation has dropped from 3000 people a day to zero – click here
• How the pandemic has led to an increase in zoning offenses in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park – click here
• How the collapse in cruise ship business has upended the budget for Glacier Bay National Park in the US – click here
• How one MPA, Chumbe Island Coral Park in Zanzibar, has set up a crowdfunding campaign to help support it through this time – click here

These recent articles on MPA-related science and policy are all free to access.

Article: Gownaris, N.J. et al. Gaps in protection of important ocean areas: a spatial meta-analysis of ten global mapping initiatives. Frontiers in Marine Science 6:650 (2019).

Finding: There have been numerous initiatives led by UN agencies or NGOs to map globally important marine areas, with each initiative applying its own set of criteria. This study is the first to overlay these initiatives, quantify consensus among them, and conduct gap analyses at a global scale. It finds that 55% of the ocean has been identified as important by one or more initiatives, and that individual areas have been identified by as many as seven overlapping initiatives. 

Niue designates large MPA

In late April, the government of the South Pacific island nation of Niue formally designated the 127,000-km² Moana Mahu Marine Protected Area, covering 40% of its exclusive economic zone. The MPA will be off-limits to commercial fishing, and is being paired with a downscaling of tuna fishing effort in Niue’s waters. The nation had announced its intent to designate the MPA in 2017 at the Our Ocean conference in Malta.

As the global MPA community approaches the 2020 deadline for meeting Aichi Target 11, it must achieve two potentially very different goals. There is the numerical goal of covering 10% of coastal and marine areas in MPAs. And there is the qualitative goal that the conservation be achieved through “effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems” of protected areas.

Achieving the numerical goal will be easier than the rest.

Dear MPA News,

I am writing in response to your article “Sharpening our focus on MPAs for 2020 and beyond: The emerging consensus on what is and is not an MPA, and the key types of MPAs” (Dec 2018 / Jan 2019).

By Rafael Magris

In November 2015, 39 million cubic meters of metal-contaminated slurry polluted riverine and coastal waters in southwestern Brazil when a tailings dam failure occurred in a headwater of the Doce River catchment. (A tailings dam is used to store wastes from mining operations.) The plume of contaminated sediment ultimately reached several sensitive marine habitats including coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and habitats formed by coralline crustose algae. Much of the sediment accumulated in two marine protected areas – Santa Cruz Wildlife Refuge and Costa das Algas Environmental Protection Area.

By Erich Hoyt and Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara

In late January 2019, the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force announced approval of 30 new Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs) in the North East Indian Ocean and South East Asian Seas Region. IMMAs are areas of habitat that are important to marine mammal species, and which have the potential to be delineated and managed for conservation. On a map, IMMAs are “marine mammal layers” intended to spotlight areas that may lead to MPAs or other conservation outcomes, such as ship route or noise reduction directives, and may be used in the course of marine spatial planning.

These recent articles or preprints on MPA-related science and policy are all free to access.

Article: Rolim, F. A. et al. Network of small no-take marine reserves reveals greater abundance and body size of fisheries target species. PLOS ONE 14, e0204970 (2019).

Chile announces southernmost MPA in the Americas