Creating MPA Inventories: How Canada and the US Are Meeting the Challenge

As MPAs are designated around the world, keeping track of their locations and what they’re protecting becomes increasingly necessary. In order for resource managers to analyze the breadth or effectiveness of a collection of MPAs, they need to know what is already in place.

This is easier said than done. In regions where MPAs have been designated under a variety of regulatory regimes, tracking down all of them can be a painstaking process. Even defining what is meant by “marine protected area” — and, therefore, what will be included in the inventory — can be tricky. This month, MPA News examines efforts by two countries to create national MPA inventories, and describes how they are facing the challenges involved.

Canada: Integrating MPAs and oceans management

Peter Hale, along with Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), has created what he sees as the tool of the future for planning Canada’s coastal and marine environment. Featuring an online GIS database, the Oceans Program Activity Tracking (OPAT) System provides visitors with information on a range of government activities: from MPAs, to integrated coastal management projects, to marine environmental quality initiatives (website address: www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/canoceans). OPAT displays each project’s geographic location, and provides additional project-related information in text, video and other formats.

Hale is coordinator of the Integrated Coastal Zone Management program for DFO. The OPAT System, he says, was designed to demonstrate how the three programs of Canada’s Oceans Act — MPAs, integrated coastal management, and marine environmental quality — relate to one another.

Hale says the system’s MPA inventory aspect is enhanced by the information on other ocean management activities. In essence, it mirrors the way that integrated coastal and ocean management is carried out. “If you simply establish an MPA but don’t manage the surrounding area with that MPA in mind, the MPA could fail,” he said.

So far, the MPA inventory displays a subset of the nation’s federal-level marine protected areas. Hale hopes to incorporate other federal and provincial MPAs in the near future. “Our goal is to provide consistency in reporting MPAs no matter where they may be,” he said. For each MPA, OPAT provides a standardized report with 20 categories of information, including ecozone, objectives, key issues, participating stakeholders, and contact information. MPA site managers are responsible for reporting the information and updating it on a regular basis, which minimizes the workload of the OPAT project team.

The OPAT team has faced some challenges, including making the online tool fully bilingual (English/French) — a requirement of the Canadian government. Some site managers are not bilingual, requiring the translation of their site information. Hale said it has also been a challenge to design the tool to be as easy to use as possible, both for visitors to the website and for site managers. “It was designed by users for users,” he said. “So far, it’s worked.”

The time required to take OPAT from its concept stage to a working online system was just four months, says Hale. The secret: another federal department — Natural Resources Canada — had already developed the applicable technology for its own purposes. Building OPAT has required just five people, including one programmer, and cost less than CDN $200,000 (US $130,000). Now, Hale says OPAT could be adapted to fit the needs of other nations, should they be interested.

“What you see now is an early version,” said Hale. “Ultimately, I’d like OPAT to be used for the planning of any activity affecting Canada’s coastal and marine waters: urbanization, agricultural activities, shipping, natural resource extraction, etc.”

US: Building an accessible inventory

In May 2000, former US President Bill Clinton signed an executive order (EO) to establish a national network of marine protected areas. Among its requirements, the EO ordered the US Departments of Commerce and the Interior to publish and maintain a list of MPAs. The development of a national MPA inventory is now underway.

Dan Farrow of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), within the Department of Commerce, is the NOAA lead on the project. He says that a fundamental principle in building the MPA inventory is to make it as open and accessible to the public as possible. “Regardless of whether you support MPAs or have concerns,” he said, “access to a comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date inventory is an essential prerequisite for a fair and factual dialogue about how best to protect our marine resources.”

The website www.mpa.gov, co-managed by the Departments of Commerce and the Interior, profiles the progress of the MPA inventory project. As of mid-August 2001, more than 250 federal and federal/state partnership sites were listed, including 36 federal fishery management areas. Each listing includes information in several categories: type of site, managing agency, legal basis, and others, as well as links to the relevant regulatory code and the MPA’s official website. The database is searchable. Farrow hopes that all federal MPAs will be inventoried by early 2002.

The next step will be to add state and territorial MPAs to the list. Farrow estimates that each coastal state and territory in the US has 50-100 MPAs of its own. Added up, that totals 1800-3600 state and territorial MPAs across the country.

Inventorying those sites will be a big job, and the project will depend on state and territorial managers to supply and update the information. The project team has developed a standardized data-collection survey — featuring a set of more than 40 data types — to assist managers in reporting at all levels (federal, state, territory, and, eventually, tribal and local). For this reporting system to work, says Farrow, it will be key to identify the incentives. “Unless you can show a program the benefits of initially providing, and then keeping timely, the information in the inventory, it is very difficult to compile and keep current this kind of comprehensive database,” he said. The biggest benefit of participation, he says, will be the ability for managers to compare their MPAs with other states’ and have ready access to a wealth of information on these sites.

One challenge that the project has faced is one encountered by all MPA inventory initiatives: developing a set of criteria for deciding which sites to add to the inventory. The interagency inventory team wrestled with a number of questions, including:

• Should the inventory include estuary sites, and, if so, how far upstream may they extend?
• Under what conditions do protected intertidal areas constitute an MPA?
• How should sites that were designated for other purposes, but which provide significant conservation value, be treated?

The working criteria developed by the team in answer to these questions (and more) are online at http://mpa.gov:80/mpaservices/building_inv/sup1_define.html. As with most features of the MPA inventory project, the working criteria are open to public comment, which can be submitted via the website.

In September 2001, the www.mpa.gov site will be revamped to include such features as clickable zoom maps to show details of individual sites, and a more robust summary of features of each listed MPA. Down the road, Farrow says, the inventory will be linked with other coastal management issues and data layers, similar to the Canadian project. “There are some key data layers that everyone is interested in — biological, physical, and land-based location data — and we are working to make these available to combine with the inventory data,” he said.

For more information

Peter Hale, Marine Ecosystem Conservation Branch, Oceans Directorate, Oceans Sector, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 200 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E6, Canada. Tel: +1 613 990 0308; E-mail: HaleP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca.

Dan Farrow, National Ocean Service, NOAA, 1305 East-West Hwy., Silver Spring, MD 20910-3282, USA. Tel: +1 301 713 3000 x156; E-mail: dan.farrow@noaa.gov.