MPA News
MPAs and Indigenous Peoples: Co-Management as a Means of Respecting Traditional Culture and Strengthening Conservation
An indigenous population is an ethnic group whose ancestors inhabited a place before another, eventually dominant culture arrived. By definition, indigenous peoples are distinct from the prevailing culture that surrounds them. That non-dominant status – and the associated effort to regain previous rights or places that were lost during the shift of cultures – has caused tensions between indigenous and non-indigenous societies throughout history. A glimpse at the news this year demonstrates the MPA field is not immune to such tensions (see box, “Recent global developments with MPAs and indigenous peoples”). The high-profile struggle over protection of the Chagos Archipelago…
MPA Perspective: Reflections on Resource Management, Native Hawaiian Culture, and Papahānaumokuākea
Editor’s note: Miwa Tamanaha is executive director of KAHEA, an alliance of Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and environmental advocates concerned with protecting Hawai’i’s environment, resources, and people. KAHEA and other local and national conservation organizations worked for years to gain protection of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, culminating in the designation by former US President George W. Bush of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in 2006 (MPA News 8:1). The Native Hawaiian monarchy that ruled Hawai’i as a sovereign state was overthrown in the 1890s as part of a US government-supported coup. Hawai’i became a US state in 1959. By Miwa…
From the Editor: MPA News in Spanish; Reader Feedback
Dear reader, We are now in the 12th year of producing MPA News and the field of marine protected areas has never been more dynamic. With international agreements calling for networks of MPAs to be in place by 2012, nations are accelerating their designation of protected areas. Likewise, the need for information on planning and managing MPAs shows no signs of letting up: more than 30,000 copies of MPA News have been downloaded from our website during this year alone. We continue to work to serve the MPA field in new ways. This month marks the launch of MPA News…
Notes & News
UK designates 15 MPAs to protect key habitats The UK government has designated 15 new MPAs to protect an array of reefs, sandbanks, and sea caves, as well as the species that depend on these habitats. Certain activities – including fishing, dredging, and wind turbines – will be banned or restricted at the 15 sites. The MPAs include inshore and offshore waters. “Today is a major step forward in helping us to achieve clean, healthy, and vibrant seas where marine life can thrive,” said Environment Minister Richard Benyon. The designations follow public consultations conducted by government statutory bodies in late…
Science Spotlight: Can Protected Areas Change Fish Behavior?
A new study published in the journal Biological Conservation offers evidence that fish could behave differently inside a no-take area compared to outside. A research team in New Zealand studied snapper across an area that encompassed a no-take MPA (Leigh Marine Reserve) and adjacent fished waters, using acoustic telemetry tags to monitor the fishes’ movement. In general, the fish exhibited two types of home ranges. One was relatively small (about 900 m in linear distance) and all of the fish tagged within the reserve exhibited this home range behavior. The other home range type was significantly larger (2100 m on…
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: The Experiences of MPA Managers So Far, and What Lessons Can Be Learned
It is mid-July and the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout in US waters of the Gulf of Mexico is still spewing crude oil from the underground field into the water column. The spill began nearly three months ago, and several million barrels of oil have been released from the seafloor wellhead. Oil company BP and the US Coast Guard continue efforts to shut off the well’s flow. The latest efforts involve installing a new cap on the broken wellhead and drilling relief wells kilometers below the seafloor. Neither strategy is guaranteed to be successful. The spill is an environmental catastrophe….
Is Offshore Drilling Worth the Environmental Risk of Spills?
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill, governments around the world are double-checking spill response plans for their own marine areas and coastlines, particularly in areas of offshore drilling. But despite the catastrophic impact the spill may have on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, no government is taking steps to outlaw offshore drilling all together in its waters. The economic pressure against such a move is too great. The Obama Administration in the US has placed a moratorium on deepwater drilling following the spill, but with a condition that it would be allowed again after steps are taken to…
How Close Is the MPA Field to Meeting Its Global Targets?
Last decade, multiple international goals were set for the protection of oceans through MPAs, with deadlines for reaching them. For some of the main goals, the deadline is now just two years away: At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), national leaders agreed to create representative networks of MPAs worldwide by 2012. At the 2003 World Parks Congress, IUCN members called for a global system of MPA networks to exist by 2012, including “strictly protected areas” amounting to at least 20-30% of each habitat. In 2005, a subsidiary body of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) called…
MPA Perspective: Standardizing the Effective Management of MPAs in Italy
By Carlo Franzosini, Marco Costantini, Saul Ciriaco, Maurizio Spoto Miramare Marine Protected Area, Trieste, Italy WWF-Italy has launched an initiative to provide high-level training and practical support for the management of Italian MPAs. The project, named ISEA (Interventi Standardizzati Gestione Efficace Aree marine protette – Standardized Actions for the Effective Management of MPAs) aims to promote efficiency and effectiveness in the management and conservation of marine and coastal life. It focuses on five of the most representative Italian MPAs, which also happen to be recognized on the international level as SPAMIs – Special Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance, under the…
Notes & News
Scientists call for large no-take areas More than 260 marine scientists from 39 countries have signed a statement calling for the designation of a global system of very large no-take MPAs. Such a system would help ensure the future abundance of top marine predator species and would match the scale of management to the scale of important ecosystem processes, they say. “Large reserves, where ecological processes and functions can operate much as they have for millennia, are virtually missing from the marine conservation and management portfolio,” state the scientists. “Globally, there are only a small number of intact regions where…