MPA News
Letter to the Editor: MPA community continues to reinvent tools rather than seek consistency
Dear MPA News: I read with interest your most recent edition (MPA News 14:1). What was particularly interesting to me was the juxtaposition of two of the articles. The first was the report of the work of the Marine Reserves Coalition on the new calculations of the coverage of MPAs worldwide, followed by the announcement of the new MPAtlas.org database by the Marine Conservation Institute. Taken together, these articles point to another example of how the MPA community has – instead of seeking consistency and building on foundations that have been provided to us – reverted yet again to reinventing…
MPA Perspective: United States Proposes MPA in Antarctica’s Ross Sea Region
By Evan T. Bloom
As one of the nations with vital and active interests in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic, the United States is an active member of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCAMLR), the international body responsible for managing marine living resources in the waters around Antarctica. On 7 September 2012, to advance marine conservation, protection, and scientific research in one of the last great ocean wilderness areas on the planet, the United States submitted a proposal to CCAMLR to establish a marine protected area in Antarctica's Ross Sea Region.
Lessons from Planning an MPA System in California: Interview with Evan Fox
In June 2012, the California Fish and Game Commission approved a plan for a systematic network of 19 MPAs and additional management areas along the north coast of the US state of California. The approval marked the completion of the open-coast portion of the state’s Marine Life Protection Act Initiative: a multi-year, region-by-region process to re-examine and redesign California’s MPA system (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/). The California MPA network – which stretches northward from the Mexico border to the state line of Oregon and now includes 119 MPAs, 5 recreational management areas and 15 special closures – is the first in the US…
Cook Islands and New Caledonia Declare Intent to Designate Large Multi-Use MPAs
MPAs more than 1 million km2 each; could allow fishing and seabed mining Two South Pacific jurisdictions have indicated their intent to plan and eventually designate MPAs that will be among the largest in the world. In September at the Pacific Islands Forum, the nation of the Cook Islands announced it would create a 1-million km2 marine park encompassing roughly half of the country’s EEZ. The French territory of New Caledonia followed with its own pledge to create a 1.4-million km2 MPA. To put these MPAs in context: the Cook Islands MPA will be roughly the size of Finland, Norway,…
Guidance available on designing MPA networks that are resilient to climate change
A new report provides a set of four general guidelines for designing MPA networks that are resilient to climate change: Protect species and habitats with crucial ecosystem roles, or those of special conservation concern; Protect potential carbon sinks; Protect ecological linkages and connectivity pathways for a wide range of species; and Protect the full range of biodiversity present in the target biogeographic area. The 82-page report Scientific Guidelines for Designing Resilient Marine Protected Area Networks in a Changing Climate is published by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an intergovernmental institution to support environmental cooperation among Canada, Mexico, and the US….
Songs for MPAs
For Pacific Islander populations, music plays a central role in society and culture. Through song and chant, the music provides a means of recording and communicating history, and of celebrating the natural world. In light of the connection that Pacific Islanders hold to their marine environment, songs have even been composed for some MPAs in the region. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands of the US, is one MPA with its own official chant. Keoni Kuoha, Native Hawaiian Program Coordinator for the Monument, explains the basis for this: “An important ingredient in our Monument’s ability to…
Notes & News: High seas MPA – Rio+20 commitments – Maldives – California – Antarctica – France – US – Canada – MPAs in developing nations – iPhone app
OSPAR designates large MPA on high seas In June the OSPAR Commission – the intergovernmental body responsible for protecting and conserving the Northeast Atlantic and its resources – designated an MPA encompassing the water column of an area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Charlie-Gibbs North High Seas MPA covers an area of nearly 180,000 km2. It is the seventh MPA that OSPAR has designated on the high seas, beyond any nation’s jurisdiction. The prior six were designated in 2010 (“Large New MPAs Designated in North Atlantic”, MPA News 12:3) The Charlie-Gibbs North High Seas MPA contains a meandering sub-polar front…
LMMA Lessons: How Communities Prepare for Managing their Marine Resources
The LMMA Network is a group of practitioners working to improve locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) in the Indo-Pacific by sharing knowledge and resources. Active for more than a decade, the network now involves hundreds of LMMA sites across seven countries: Fiji, Indonesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Pohnpei, and Solomon Islands. Practitioners in other world regions are starting to look to the LMMA Network for lessons and inspiration (“Creation of a Network of Locally Managed Marine Areas in the Western Indian Ocean”, MPA News 13:3). In this light, MPA News presents this new feature “LMMA Lessons”, drawing on the…
MPA Perspective: Coral MPAs and the Need for Long-Term Local Community Benefits, by Douglas Fenner
Editor’s note: Douglas Fenner is a coral reef monitoring ecologist with the Department of Marine & Wildlife Resources, American Samoa. His essay here is adapted from an article he published this year in Diversity journal, “Challenges for Managing Fisheries on Diverse Coral Reefs” (www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/4/1/105/pdf ). By Douglas Fenner Coral reef fisheries are among the most diverse fisheries in the world. In the Indo-Pacific region alone, as many as 300 species are taken. These fisheries are also among the most difficult of all fisheries to manage, and most are undermanaged or not managed at all. Most coral reefs are located in…
New Global MPA Database Launched: MPAtlas.org
A new database that aims to provide more details and context on marine protected areas worldwide is in late-stage development. Called MPAtlas and already viewable online (www.mpatlas.org ), the project is a joint effort of the Marine Conservation Institute and the Waitt Foundation. “We undertook this project to help the global MPA community better understand where MPAs are and what they are doing to protect marine life,” says Lance Morgan, project director and president of the Marine Conservation Institute. “One of the difficulties with a term as general as ‘marine protected area’ is that it means different things to different…