MPA News
Notes & News: UK – South Georgia and South Sandwich – Timor-Leste – MPA governance – MPA business plans – Research in large MPAs – Video series – Marine World Heritage film
Public consultation ends 31 March on downsized plan for English MPAs A proposal announced by UK Environment Minister Richard Benyon last December to designate a significantly smaller system of MPAs in English waters than previously recommended is open for public consultation through 31 March. From 2009-2011, UK agencies oversaw a public process to design a national MPA system, featuring several rounds of multistakeholder consultation. The process resulted in a recommendation to designate a system of 127 MPAs throughout English waters. That recommendation is available here: http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/2030218?category=1723382 However, Benyon discarded most of that plan, paring the proposed system down to just…
LMMA Lessons: Sustainable management outside of MPAs is just as important as inside
In December 2012, practitioners from the Fiji Locally Managed Area Network (FLMMA) gathered to share lessons and best practices. Among the topics addressed was the importance of good governance and management outside of MPAs, not just inside those areas. In the LMMA Network, efforts to manage activities outside protected areas are combined with implementation of protected areas to promote sustainable benefits to communities and ecosystem health.
Good management of the waters surrounding MPAs should include:
New Year’s Resolutions for the MPA Field: What Practitioners Would Like to Happen in 2013
The year 2012 was a noteworthy one for the MPA world, both for things that happened (like Australia’s designation of an enormous new national MPA system) or, in some cases, did not (like Antarctic managers’ failure to designate a Southern Ocean MPA system by year-end, as planned). In 2012 the World Commission on Protected Areas released new, more restrictive guidelines for what should be considered an MPA – reopening a central discussion with implications for whether and how the field can meet global protection targets. And the year featured some quirky occurrences, too, like when the UK realized its Chagos…
Identifying Three Types of Ecologically Important Sites on the High Seas: An Interview with Jeff Ardron
Jeff Ardron of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, based in Germany (www.iass-potsdam.de), spends a lot of time thinking about the high seas. He is active in no fewer than three distinct processes to identify ecologically important marine sites, specifically in areas beyond national jurisdiction: Identifying vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) for regional fisheries management organizations in the context of bottom fisheries; Identifying ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSAs) in the context of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity; and Identifying sites that could be of outstanding universal value (OUV) according to the natural criteria of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention….
Results from MPA News Poll: Reader Response to Tighter Guidelines for What Is Considered a Marine Protected Area
In our November/December 2012 issue, MPA News described how the World Commission on Protected Areas has recently provided greater clarity on the IUCN definition for marine protected area. Namely, some sites that previously may have been considered MPAs – such as gear or temporal closures with no wider stated conservation aims, or community areas managed primarily for sustainable extraction of marine products, or single-species protected areas like shark sanctuaries – may be re-categorized as other types of spatial zoning, and no longer considered to be MPAs. We asked you to indicate which of the following statements best reflected your perspective…
Perspective: Puget Sound Needs a Network of Effective MPAs and No-Take Marine Reserves
By Jamie Glasgow [Editor’s note: Jamie Glasgow is director of science for the Wild Fish Conservancy (www.wildfishconservancy.org), an NGO dedicated to the recovery and conservation of wild-fish ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest region of the US.] Puget Sound is a complex marine estuary that encompasses an area of 2600 km2 in the northwestern US state of Washington. The Sound supports an astounding diversity of fish, seabirds, marine mammals, plants, and invertebrates. It is also adjacent to a major metropolitan center that is home to over four million people, where the population is expected to increase to seven million by 2020….
Letter to the Editor: Clarification on Antarctic MPA proposals
Dear MPA News: I am writing in regard to your coverage of the October 2012 meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (“CCAMLR fails to reach consensus on Antarctic MPA proposals”, MPA News 14:3). I want to clarify something that might be misleading if not properly understood. The proposal for the creation of MPAs along the Antarctic Peninsula was not directed to areas that are already exposed by collapsed ice sheets but, rather, to areas TO BE EXPOSED by the collapse of ice sheets. Closing the latter areas would allow research to be conducted as…
Notes & News: Belize – Mediterranean MPA lessons – Diesel spill – Norway
Belize designates multi-use MPA for Turneffe Atoll; Bertarelli Foundation again involved In November 2012, the Belizean government designated the 1316-km2 Turneffe Atoll Marine Reserve, a multi-use MPA that covers the largest previously unprotected section of Belize’s Barrier Reef. In a statement to mark the designation, Fisheries Minister Lisel Alamilla said the MPA’s management plan will ensure that conservation priorities are balanced with those of local fishing communities and the coral reef ecotourism sector. The designation was facilitated by the involvement of the Bertarelli Foundation, a Swiss foundation that is providing US $5 million in support of the new MPA. That…
LMMA Lessons: Strategies for improving community compliance and enforcement
[Editor’s note: The LMMA Network supports learning, advocacy, partnership, and institutional development for community-driven marine resource management and conservation, including through the use of locally-managed marine areas or LMMAs (www.lmmanetwork.org). In this recurring feature “LMMA Lessons”, the network offers insights that its practitioners have gathered over the past decade.] Compliance with and enforcement of management and conservation rules can be among the main challenges faced by ocean managers. Below are tips drawn from Western Pacific enforcement workshops and training events, as well as directly from LMMA practitioners’ experience, on ways to enhance compliance and enforcement: Good communication and broad outreach…
Norwegian study: MPAs benefiting lobster and cod
In 2006, four experimental lobster reserves (each 0.5-1 km2 in area) were implemented along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast offering complete protection to shellfish and partial protection to fish — only hook-and-line fishing was allowed (MPA News 8:5). Results from a before-after control-impact (! BACI) study of the reserves have been published. By 2010, density of European lobster inside the reserves increased by 3.5 times and lobster size rose 13%; in comparison, the control areas showed only modest changes. Meanwhile, the population density and body size of coastal Atlantic cod studied inside one reserve also increased in comparison to multiple control…