MPA News

Dear reader, Welcome to our second all-electronic issue! If you previously received MPA News on paper, we have switched you to email delivery. We have returned to monthly distribution — the same frequency we had for the first decade of MPA News. In general this will mean more frequent and more concise issues.  A quick note: In our last issue (October 2016), I mentioned we would soon report on an array of new financing strategies and opportunities for MPAs. Our extensive coverage of that topic will now be in our next issue. Thanks for reading MPA News! John Davis, Editor, mpanews@u.washington.edu

The world will soon have a new largest protected area, marine or terrestrial. In October, member states of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) agreed by consensus to designate a 1.55 million-km2 MPA in the remote and relatively pristine Ross Sea. The purpose is to protect benthic biodiversity, populations of commercially valuable toothfish, and critical habitat for penguins, seals, and other predators. The Ross Sea MPA will come into force on 1 December 2017. In a concession to CCAMLR members concerned about a permanent MPA, the designation is set to expire in 35 years —…

By Rodolfo Werner, Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition This October, something extraordinary took place in the Southern Hemisphere. After years of negotiations at the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), 24 countries and the European Union finally agreed to designate the world’s largest MPA in the Ross Sea. This marks the first time that world leaders have agreed — and by consensus — to protect a large area of the high seas from commercial fishing. This victory, while falling short of a permanent MPA designation, is a significant development for marine protection in the Southern Ocean…

MPA News does not normally report on elections of national leaders. However, the early-November election of Donald J. Trump to serve as the next President of the US could be relevant to the MPA field. In particular there is the possibility it could bring a rollback of some significant MPAs. Trump has stated his intent to “cancel every unconstitutional executive action” issued by current US President Barack Obama. Depending on how Trump and his administration choose to define “unconstitutional” (the term is often used loosely in US politics), those executive actions could include MPA designations. Namely these would be MPAs…

By Liezel C. Paraboles, Wilfredo L. Campos, and Samuel J. Gulayan

Danajon Bank is the only double barrier reef in the Philippines and across Asia. Historically, this area likely had the richest coastal marine habitats among islands and shoals in Central Philippines (e.g., extensive coral reefs, dense seagrass beds, expansive mangrove areas), and was perhaps the region’s most productive marine area. But because of continuously increasing fishing pressure brought about by an ever-growing coastal population, marine resources in Danajon Bank have been heavily exploited for decades, leading to dwindling fish catches for small-scale fishermen. Thus several NGOs and government agencies have come in to address these threats to coastal marine habitats and the living resources they harbor.

By Jennifer O’Leary, California Polytechnic State University (adapted by MPA News)

In 2009, the Kenya Wildlife Service and California Polytechnic State Institute jointly established the Science for Active Management program (SAM) to help East African MPA managers and local fishers understand and manage their reefs. At first the program focused on a single Kenyan MPA. At that site, managers had a very low understanding of marine systems and the MPA had lost many corals. Fishers felt disengaged from MPA management and were not contributing actively to management of their fishing grounds. Most people who worked on the beaches serving vacationers had no knowledge of marine ecosystems, and the beaches had been polluted with plastic trash for decades.

Cook Islands announces MPA will cover entire EEZ In mid-November, the South Pacific island nation of the Cook Islands announced that the proposed Marae Moana (Cook Islands Marine Park), which has been under planning since 2012, will now cover the nation’s entire 1.9 million-km2 EEZ. Previously the plan had been for the MPA to cover just the southern half of the nation’s EEZ. The decision to expand the planned MPA was based on consultations with stakeholders in the Cook Islands’ northern island group, as well as local and outside scientific information. The MPA will be multiple-use and will represent a…