MPA News
New group aims to engage young professionals in MPA field, involve them in high-level decisions
The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas – Marine has launched a new task force to engage and network young professionals in the global MPA field. Designed in part to support WCPA-Marine’s work, the task force also seeks to raise the profile of young practitioners and involve them directly in communications and decision-making at regional and global levels. The Young Professionals Marine Task Force defines young professionals as being 35 years old and younger. The group is co-chaired by Kathy Zischka and Mariasole Bianco and supported by Rebecca Koss, all active members of WCPA – Marine. It grew out of…
Perspective | Reflecting on marine territory: Seaflower MPA, the Raizal people, and the International Court of Justice
By Marion Howard, Elizabeth Taylor, and Fanny Howard
The San Andres Archipelago is a department of Colombia in the western Caribbean made up of three small inhabited islands and coral banks, atolls, and cays that comprise the largest open-ocean coral reefs in the Americas. Descendants of the first settlers, known as Raizal people, are defined as a national ethnic minority by Colombia and recognized as indigenous by the UN. Raizals descend from English settlers who started arriving in 1630 on the Seaflower (sister ship of the Mayflower), African slaves, and migrants from other Caribbean islands. They have a long sociocultural and economic history distinct from mainland Colombia. Besides having a different language, religion, and ethnicity, the archipelago's isolation meant that the people had a high level of self-determination for over 300 years, mostly controlling their natural resources and marine-based economy until the middle of the 20th century.
World Heritage Committee welcomes progress but keeps Great Barrier Reef on watchlist
At its annual meeting, which is ongoing as this issue of MPA News goes to press, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has unanimously voted to keep the Great Barrier Reef on its watchlist due to an array of challenges facing the protected area, including poor water quality from runoff, habitat loss, impacts from coastal development, and climate change. However, the committee welcomed Australia’s 2050 long-term sustainability plan for the reef, which includes an 80% cut in water pollution by 2025 and an extra AU $200m to accelerate that progress in the next five years (http://bit.ly/GBR2050plan). The committee also greeted Australia’s moves…
Perspective | A new start to effectively managing fishing in English European Marine Sites?
By Jean-Luc Solandt, Senior Biodiversity Policy Officer, MCS, UK jean-luc.solandt@mcsuk.org Over 100 European Marine Sites (EMS) have been designated in the UK under EU laws since 1994, covering 7.6% of UK seas. Yet until recently, they have not been systematically effective at managing destructive fishing practices. Since 2008 the Marine Conservation Society (MCS; www.mcsuk.org) and Client Earth (www.clientearth.org) have been collaborating on a national campaign to effectively protect EMS from damaging fishing. Initial letters written by our organizations to regulators highlighted that fishing by any means in EMS required proof of a lack of damage to the seabed habitats inside…
Perspective | Improving MPA protection through crowdsourcing and compliance assistance: The EPIC 805 Project
By Gordon Hensley and Gale Filter
Morro Bay is a 9.3-km2 estuary along the central coast of the US state of California. It is protected by overlapping layers of local, state, and federal governance. Most of the bay is a State Marine Recreational Management Area under California law: all commercial fishing activities are prohibited, with the exception of shellfish farming in designated areas. A smaller portion of the bay is completely no-take, the Morro Bay State Marine Reserve. And the entire bay and its feeder creeks are overseen by a local/federal partnership under the National Estuary Program, which provides federal financial and technical assistance to address local conservation issues.
Notes & news: Pitcairn – US – California – Benefits of no-take areas
UK Conservative party wins election; no final announcement yet on Pitcairn MPA In March 2015, the ruling UK Government at the time – a coalition of the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats – announced its intent to designate an MPA around the Pitcairn Islands, a UK territory in the South Pacific (MPA News 16:4). The MPA would encompass the islands’ entire 834,334-km2 marine area, and most of it would be no-take. The announcement of intent was delivered in a pre-election budget ahead of national elections in May. The budget laid out the Government’s governing plan should it win the election….
Ahead of election, UK Government proposes giant MPA around Pitcairn; opposition party responds with ambitious MPA plans of its own
The UK Government has indicated its intent to designate an MPA around the Pitcairn Islands, a remote and lightly populated UK territory in the South Pacific, midway between New Zealand and Peru. It is anticipated that the MPA would encompass the islands’ entire 834,334-km2 marine area, and most of the MPA would be no-take. A “Protect Pitcairn” coalition that has advocated for the MPA in recent years – led by Pitcairn’s population of 50 residents, the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program, and the National Geographic Society – has proposed that 99% of the MPA be off-limits to fishing…
What the UN agreement to launch negotiations for a high seas treaty means for MPAs: Interview with Kristina Gjerde
In January of this year, the United Nations agreed to develop a legally binding treaty on high seas biodiversity (“Notes & news“, MPA News 16:3). This decision by UN Member States is a promising development for high seas conservation. Effectively, such a treaty could provide a worldwide framework for conserving the 64% of the global ocean that is beyond national waters, including by enabling a system of high seas MPAs. Kristina Gjerde has spent the past decade advocating for such a treaty, both in her role as high seas policy adviser for IUCN and as a member of the High…
Effort underway in Bahamas to create a financially sustainable MPA from the ground up
One of the main challenges facing MPAs is securing enough funding to meet their program and staffing needs. MPAs are typically dependent on government sources for most or all of their funding. In an era of budgetary cutbacks, this has led to financial shortfalls for many sites. Who is going to pay for MPAs? In the Bahamas, an effort is underway to create an MPA that is financially self-sufficient from the start. The approach: build a site that serves the needs of researchers and filmmakers in a very user-friendly way, and charge them for that service. A unique property and…
Perspective | Six factors to consider when deciding whether to use drones to enforce your MPA
By Jayson Horadam and Emma Doyle
In recent months, several MPA managers in the Caribbean region have been approached by various firms that produce drone technology. These firms have marketed the potential benefits of air- or sea-based drones to MPA management, particularly with regard to enforcement. (We acknowledge that drones may also be of use in environmental monitoring of MPAs, but we focus here on the enforcement implications.)
Drones remain a relatively new technology, and few MPA managers have direct experience with them yet. In this light, some of the MPA managers who have been approached asked us for our input on the value of drones. We are providing our advice here in hopes that it may be of use to the broader MPA community, beyond just the Caribbean.