MPA News
Notes & News
Report offers priorities for coastal and marine conservation in South America A new report published by The Nature Conservancy, an NGO, examines threats to coastal and marine biodiversity in South America and identifies priority areas for conservation in the region. The report is the result of a five-year collaboration between The Nature Conservancy and the national governments of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. In each country, the planning process involved comparable methods for assessing the status of coastal and marine environments. “It is clear where efforts need to be directed, both in terms of where additional protected areas…
MPA Tip: Management plans should be clear and simple
“MPA Tip” is a recurring feature in MPA News that presents advice on planning and management gathered from various publications on protected areas. The purpose is two-fold: to provide useful guidance to practitioners, and to serve as a reminder of valuable literature in the MPA field. MPA News adapted the following tip from Guidelines for Management Planning of Protected Areas (IUCN, 2003) by Lee Thomas and Julie Middleton, available online at http://app.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/PAG-010.pdf. Tip: The simpler the management plan, the easier it will be to develop and implement. It will take less time to prepare, will cost less, will be more…
Coral Species Added to IUCN Red List for First Time: What Does This Mean for MPAs?
The 2007 edition of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, an annual assessment of the threat of extinction to Earth’s plants and animals, contains corals for the first time. Ten coral species are now on the list, including two categorized as Critically Endangered and one described as Vulnerable. The 2007 Red List has also added 74 species of seaweed – up from just one species in the previous edition – with 10 of these seaweeds described as Critically Endangered. Notably, all of these species are endemic to one place: the Galápagos Marine Reserve. What do these listings mean for…
Special Feature: European Symposium Examines MPAs Across Fisheries Management and Ecosystem Conservation
More than 400 people from 46 countries gathered in September in Murcia, Spain, to discuss the use of MPAs for ecosystem conservation and fisheries management, mainly in temperate waters. The European Symposium on Marine Protected Areas (www.mpasymposium2007.eu) provided a wide range of findings and perspectives, drawn from a mix of researchers, managers, government officials, and representatives of fishing industries, environmental NGOs, and international organizations. The symposium was organized by two EU-funded research projects – PROTECT (www.mpa-eu.net) and EMPAFISH (www.um.es/empafish) – that address ecological, economic, and social dimensions of MPAs, including tools for design and evaluation. The project sites range from…
MPA Perspective: Defining Conservation in the Marine Realm, Including What Is (or Is Not) an MPA
Editor’s note: Richard Kenchington is co-director of RAC Marine, a consulting firm on sustainable management of marine ecosystems and resources. From 1996-1999, he served as executive director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Australia. By Richard Kenchington The IUCN is now engaged in redefining the term “protected area” and reconsidering its system of categorizing such areas. The current categories system is familiar to many in the field of protected areas. It ranges from categories I and II, managed mainly for nature protection, to category VI, managed mainly for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems by people. (The…
Notes & News
Latin American Parks Congress: 2008-2018 to be “decade of MPAs” Participants in the Second Latin American Congress on National Parks and Other Protected Areas, held earlier this month, declared the years 2008-2018 to be the “decade of MPAs”. An official statement of the 2200 participants urged Latin American governments to prioritize the establishment of national and regional MPA networks as part of a system of integrated ocean management. The goal is to meet targets set at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, including for the designation of representative MPA networks worldwide by 2012 (MPA News 4:3). The congress…
MPA Tip: The Fundamental Criterion for MPA Success
“MPA Tip” is a recurring feature in MPA News that presents advice on planning and management gathered from various publications on protected areas. The purpose is two-fold: to provide useful guidance to practitioners, and to serve as a reminder of valuable literature in the MPA field. MPA News excerpted the following tip from Guidelines for Marine Protected Areas (IUCN, 1996), edited by Graeme Kelleher and available online at http://app.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/PAG-003.pdf. Tip: The fundamental criterion for success in MPA planning and management is to bring in from the beginning every significant sector that will affect, or be affected by, the MPA. The…
Big Old Fat Fecund Female Fish: The BOFFFF Hypothesis and What It Means for MPAs and Fisheries Management
Modern fisheries management has often guided fishermen to select the large individuals of targeted stocks, either by using size-selective gear or releasing small individuals back to the water. The reasoning has been that this allows smaller, younger individuals to grow up to reproductive age, thereby sustaining the stock. Recent research, however, shows that removing the larger, older individuals of a population may actually undermine stock replenishment. This appears especially to be the case for removal of larger, older females, which often produce significantly more offspring – and sometimes stronger offspring – than younger females do. Some researchers have proposed the…
Before All the Ice Melts, Part II: More Experts Weigh In on Proactive Management for Arctic Ocean
Due to climate change it is possible that the summertime Arctic Ocean could become ice-free by mid-century, according to the worst-case scenario of warming. This would open the relatively pristine Arctic marine ecosystem to industrial activities including fishing, shipping, and petroleum exploration and drilling. Arctic nations are already staking claims to portions of the Arctic seabed beyond their traditional 200-nm EEZs, seeking national jurisdiction over the resources there. In the August 2007 edition of MPA News, scientists and conservationists commented on opportunities for proactive management of the Arctic Ocean – establishing systems for sustainable management of the Arctic Ocean before…
Notes & News
Names of newly discovered species to be auctioned for MPA-related conservation Looking for new ways to raise funds for your MPA? If so, take note of “The Blue Auction”, occurring 20 September in Monaco. The event will sell the rights to name several species of fish discovered during surveys of the Bird’s Head Seascape region of Indonesia. The surveys, conducted in 2006, were part of an ongoing initiative to establish ecosystem-based management in the region, including designation of MPA networks (MPA News 8:4). Proceeds from the auction will go to fund the initiative, which is a partnership of Conservation International,…