MPA News
High Seas Closures in the Western Tropical Pacific: A Step Forward for MPAs in International Waters
On 1 January of this year, in a move to protect the world’s last large stocks of tuna from overfishing, a 4.5 million-km2 area in the western tropical Pacific Ocean was closed to purse seine fishing. The vast closure, in which limited longlining will still be allowed, was designated by the eight nations that are Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), a subregional agreement for managing tuna. The PNA nations control 25% of the world’s tuna supply and comprise the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. To put the massive…
Letter to the Editor: Large MPAs Can Be a Distraction
Dear MPA News, In your January/February 2011 issue, Jay Nelson responded to remarks that I previously made regarding global MPA coverage and the role of large MPAs in ocean protection (“Letters to the Editor: Large MPAs are essential”, MPA News 12:4). He and I are not so far apart as it might seem. We both agree and clearly state that we need large MPAs. Indeed in order to get to scale, particularly in offshore waters, the only way forward will be through very large MPAs. Out of context, my suggestion that establishing large MPAs can be like stamp collecting may…
Notes & News
Measures taken to halt expansion of bottom fisheries in 16 million square miles of North Pacific In March 2011, negotiations among seven nations to formalize fisheries management in the North Pacific resulted in several interim conservation measures to protect seafloor habitats. Among these measures, the participating nations agreed to not use bottom-contact gear throughout most international waters of the North Pacific without first undertaking an assessment of vulnerable marine ecosystems and determining there will be no adverse environmental impact. This halts the expansion of bottom fishing into an area of 16.1 million square miles. The negotiating countries were Canada, China,…
Correction: Global MPA Coverage Figure Was Low
The November/December 2010 issue of MPA News reported conclusions from the latest assessment of MPA coverage worldwide – Global Ocean Protection: Present Status and Future Possibilities, published in October by IUCN, UNEP, The Nature Conservancy, and other organizations. The report calculated global MPA coverage to be 4.2 million km2, or 1.17% of the oceans. The lead author of the analysis, Mark Spalding, contacted MPA News to correct that global coverage figure: “In 2007 New Zealand declared over 1 million km2 of Benthic Protection Areas in off-shelf waters. These sites were declared for biodiversity protection and while their focus is to…
Notes & News: EBM in practice – Economic incentives for conservation – Marine and coastal adaptation – Arctic sustainability – MPAs in fisheries management
Webinar on EBM in practice: recording available An audio recording of the 13 January 2011 webinar on EBM in practice along the US west coast, co-presented by MEAM and the EBM Tools Network, is available at www.ebmtools.org/about_ebm/meam.html. The webinar featured the work of the West Coast EBM Network, a partnership of community-based initiatives focused on proactive management of local coastal ecosystems (www.westcoastebm.org). Making marine conservation a preferable option for decision-makers A new report describes strategies for making marine conservation a viable and financially attractive option for decision-makers. The 40-page guide Economic Incentives for Marine Conservation proposes three approaches – buyouts,…
Comparing Two Methods of Building MPA Networks: One Site at a Time vs. All at Once
Marine protected areas are designated typically in a piecemeal fashion, one site at a time. A special habitat is identified and protected in an MPA…then another special habitat is identified and protected…then another. Over time, and with enough diligence, a country or region can build a representative system of MPAs this way. This gradual method, however, may not be the most efficient way of building a representative network of MPAs. It can take a long time to carry out. And the ad hoc planning style can lead to gaps in coverage as planners focus on protecting one site rather than…
Network Launched for Managers of Very Large MPAs
A new network has been created to help managers of large-scale MPAs – greater than 250,000 km2 in area – to share their experience in addressing the unique challenges of overseeing such vast protected areas. The Big Ocean network, as it is called, was launched in December and includes the managers of five MPAs so far: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Australia), Marianas Trench Marine National Monument (US), Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park surrounding Sala y Gomez Island (Chile), Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (US), and Phoenix Islands Protected Area (Kiribati). Aside from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which was…
MPA Perspective: Autonomous Vessels Offer New Tool for MPA Research and Enforcement
By Brendan Tougher and Philip A. McGillivary [Editor’s note: The authors of this essay have no financial interest in the products they describe here.] Autonomous vessels – that is, unmanned vessels that can operate independently of human direction or by remote control – offer MPA managers a new tool for research and enforcement. Recently developed autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) are now being tested in marine protected areas to provide a broad range of monitoring capabilities. Using ASVs in MPAs enables the study of temporally short-lived events, such as the effect of storms, and spatially unpredictable features, such as upwelling and…
Letters to the Editor
Large MPAs are essential Dear MPA News: In “Views of Global MPA Coverage and the 10% Target: Interview with Mark Spalding and Kristina Gjerde” (MPA News, November/December 2010), Dr. Spalding acknowledges that while “mega-MPAs are really important,” focusing on them threatens to throw “off course” localized efforts to protect our oceans. Imagine the world today without Yellowstone National Park or the many significant protected areas that followed in its path. Surely the establishment of Yellowstone was a good thing, and its designation did not impede the creation of public and community parks. Similarly, our oceans, like our lands, are vast…
Science Spotlight: Studies on Larval Export, MPA Impacts on Communities
Genetic evidence shows larvae from reserves are reseeding fisheries Researchers have proven, using DNA analysis, that larvae from adult fish inside a network of no-take marine reserves in Hawai’i are spilling into fished areas and helping to reseed fisheries. Studying more than 1000 juvenile and adult yellow tang – a fish species popular in the aquarium trade – scientists determined that many healthy juvenile fish had spawned from parents long distances away, as far as 184 km, including from MPAs. The research team claims its study is the first direct evidence of large-scale population connectivity within an existing and effective…