MPA News
Feedback on Subject of Marine Reserve Science: Readers Respond With Variety of Views
The December 2003/January 2004 issue of MPA News offered two essays by scientists on marine reserve research. One questioned the rigor with which reserve research has been conducted, while the other explained difficulties involved in studying reserves, including finding adequate control sites. The essays presented a dilemma: we all want the best science on reserves, but to get it will require significantly more time and money – resources that are already scarce for managers. Readers responded to the essays with a range of views, from arguing that the state of reserve science is stronger than was depicted, to suggesting that…
Notes & News
Australia to compensate fishers impacted by MPAs Under a new policy announced in January, the Australian Government will compensate fishermen and communities that suffer “significant and demonstrable negative impacts” from new or re-zoned MPAs in Commonwealth waters. The policy, detailed in a statement released in January, requires decisions on providing adjustment payments to be made by the Government on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the nature of each MPA and its impacts. In the event of a decision favoring adjustment assistance, management agencies, industry, and the community will be involved in designing the assistance program. While there is no…
MPA Perspective: Reflections on the New Paradigm for Protected Areas
Editor’s note: Adrian Phillips, author of this perspective piece, is a senior advisor to IUCN on World Heritage. He has authored, co-authored, and edited several books and reports on protected areas, including the IUCN Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines series. Phillips’s essay here was adapted by MPA News from an article he authored for The George Wright Forum (Vol. 20, No. 2), the journal of the George Wright Society, a US-based conservation NGO. The original article can be found online in PDF format at http://www.georgewright.org/202phillips.pdf. By Adrian Phillips, IUCN Over the past half-century, changes that have occurred in our thinking…
Seeking the Win-Win Situation: A Brief Guide to Balancing Conservation and Fisheries Yields in Reserve Design
The list of potential benefits from closing ocean areas to extractive uses include the conservation of biodiversity within these reserves and the improvement of conditions for fisheries outside of them – the latter owing to the export of larvae and spillover of adults from the protected areas. Some marine reserves have been designated with both conservation and increased fisheries yields as goals, seeking a win-win situation for biodiversity and fishermen. But the ability of reserves to achieve both goals simultaneously remains easier to conceptualize than to document, due partly to the challenges of following rigorous scientific protocols in the ocean…
MPA Perspective: The Science of Marine Reserves: How Much of It Is Science?
By Trevor Willis, Russell Millar, Russ Babcock & Nick Tolimieri Many recent scientific papers on the subject of marine reserve effects contain statements within their introductions along the lines of “It is well known that exploited species exhibit increases in density and mean size within reserves”, supported by a number of citations. A closer look at the cited papers shows that many are review articles. Of the empirical studies published, most present ambiguous evidence for recovery. In fact, between 1990 and 2001, only 42% of published papers in this area contained empirical data, and many of these were difficult to…
MPA Perspective: Difficulties Involved in Studying Marine Reserves
By Fiona Gell and Callum Roberts Some scientists point out, rightly, that most studies of marine reserves employ designs which cannot unequivocally deliver a verdict on whether they work. Many studies compare a single reserve with one or more control sites. Since in some cases (but certainly not all), reserves were chosen because they have good quality habitats, this leaves open the possibility that differences detected are habitat rather than protection effects. Similarly, changes over time in measures of reserve performance may be due to habitat or background environmental changes. The strongest study design for reserves research is considered to…
Effort Underway to Expand Use of World Heritage Convention for MPAs
The World Heritage Convention, adopted in 1972 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), seeks to protect the world’s most important cultural and natural heritage. In designating more than 700 locales as World Heritage sites – from Vatican City to the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef – the 177 state parties to the convention have indicated their desire to see these places preserved for future generations to enjoy. Although the designation of World Heritage provides a potentially valuable mechanism for conserving marine ecosystems, such potential has remained relatively untapped. Of the World Heritage sites listed…
Notes & News
Re-zoning plan for Great Barrier Reef delivered to Australian Parliament The enormous effort to re-zone the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (MPA News 4:11 and 5:1) is now one step closer to completion. On December 3, Australian Environment Minister David Kemp delivered a zoning plan to the Australian Parliament, following approval of the plan by the Board of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA). Parliament, if it chooses to do so, has until March 2004 to pass a resolution to disallow the plan; if there is no such motion, Kemp will set the date for the plan to…
Tools and Strategies for Financial Sustainability: How Managers Are Building Secure Futures for Their MPAs
Editor’s note: The following article is based on a workshop held in September 2003 at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa. Entitled “Building a Complex Portfolio to Sustainably Finance Marine Protected Area Networks”, the workshop was coordinated and chaired by Scott Smith of The Nature Conservancy, a US-based NGO. For more information: Scott Smith, The Nature Conservancy, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. Tel: +1 703 841 8175; E-mail: ssmith@tnc.org Marine protected areas worldwide suffer from a chronic funding shortage. The ever-rising costs of operating MPAs too often outrun the financial support provided by…
Problem Is Shortage of Capacity, Not Revenue Sources: Proposing a New Approach to Financing Protected Areas
The shortage of funding for protected areas often spurs conservation planners to search for new revenue sources outside the conventional support realm of governments, donors, and multilateral agencies. But a strategy focused solely on new revenue generation is likely to fail, says Andreas Merkl, executive director of the US-based Conservation and Community Investment Forum (CCIF). A considerable pool of potential capital is actually available from conventional sources, he says. The real problem is that this capital is unlikely to be committed unless the capacity to deliver protected area services at a meaningful scale with unassailable accountability is dramatically improved over…