A compilation of resources and trainings on MPA design and management, across education levels (from MPA professionals to general public)
In 2016, the EBM Tools Network compiled a list of hands-on, online activities for teaching about ecosystem services and ecosystem-based management that has since been updated with several more activities. Recently, a university professor asked the Network if any similar online resources existed for teaching MPA design and management. EBM Tools Network members pooled their collective knowledge again and came up with a list of resources for teaching about MPAs at all educational levels.
To that list, MPA News has added a compilation of in-person training opportunities that are aimed at MPA professionals. The combined list of resources and trainings is below.
MPA Training in a Nutshell: Filling data gaps through partnerships
By Anne Nelson and the IMPACT team
How many times have you had a discussion on the potential impact of future human activities in your MPA and the conclusion is, “We don’t have enough information on that species, habitat, use, or impact”? Often the reasons for the data gaps are that there is no funding for data collection without a related project, or not enough capacity, or it’s not in someone’s plan of work to focus on the activity and there’s no direction from leadership to do the work.
Perspective: What we wish we had known when we got started in the MPA field
By Sibylle Riedmiller and Eleanor Carter
When Chumbe Island MPA was first conceived in the early 1990s we could never have foreseen the kind of struggles we were going to encounter. Having such an original approach, with Chumbe being the first privately managed MPA in the world, we understood that it wasn’t going to be easy. Building an ecolodge on a remote island, undertaking outreach, engaging and training community members to be conservation stewards, building capacity of former fishers to become environmental education specialists, introducing high-end hospitality skills into communities with little experience in this area — these were all challenges we expected and planned for.