Global targets call for effective MPAs. But how do we best achieve effectiveness? Practitioners respond

The concept of effectiveness comes up often in the MPA field:

• Aichi Target 11 calls for 10% of nations’ waters to be in effectively managed MPAs or other effective area-based conservation measures by 2020
• The IUCN Green List recognizes protected areas that meet its standards for effectiveness
• High-profile studies (like this and this) have identified factors that correlate with MPA effectiveness, while noting that few MPAs possess all these factors

The most basic gauge of MPA effectiveness is pretty simple: Is a site achieving its stated goals or not? But even if we assume that most MPA goals, if met, would produce positive outcomes, it still begs the question of how practitioners should best plan and manage MPAs to meet their goals.

That’s a big question. How do we get MPAs to achieve what we want them to achieve? Answering it could end up incorporating every management challenge there is, from site selection to governance to monitoring and everything in between.

For this reason, “effective” may be the most critical word in global MPA targets. In fact it may be as hard, or harder, to meet than the targets’ numerical coverage goals.

With this in mind – and inspired by the recent ICES Journal of Marine Science feature on MPA effectiveness (see box, “Debating the effectiveness of MPAs”) – we reached out to MPA practitioners with a question:

What is the biggest challenge that the global MPA community faces in achieving effectiveness?

Then we asked for their thoughts on meeting that challenge. Their responses are below.

This article is not expected or intended to solve the challenges of MPA effectiveness, as those are likely to remain for as long as MPAs are a management tool. But it provides some useful perspectives on where the main challenges lie.

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Biggest challenge is the culture and commitment of management organizations

By Marc Hockings

I think the biggest challenge is one of culture and commitment. By culture, I mean having an approach to management – within the organization responsible for managing the MPA – that is open to reflection, and that embraces honest assessment of performance as a basis for improvement. Such assessment can be either self-assessment or from outside. This culture needs to extend throughout the organization from the senior leadership to the field managers. It also needs an environment where it is “safe” to recognize shortcomings, understanding that this recognition is the first step towards improvement. This can be difficult in a political and cultural environment that sees such an admission as failure and as something to be avoided at all costs.

By commitment, I mean the determination to make this approach of reflective evaluation a central core of management. In doing so, the necessary attention is given to monitoring in order to provide the evidence base for evaluating effectiveness. Then that assessment must be integrated into planning, decision-making, and resource allocation.

The challenge initially needs to be led from the top. The clear and public commitment of the Chief Executive of the managing organization is critical to building the culture of the organization. Secondly, focus on what is doable! When starting a program of management effectiveness evaluation, there can be a temptation to monitor and assess everything – but such programs often collapse under their own weight.

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Missing piece is often knowledge of pressures

By Janica Borg

MPA efficiency – the focus of a pilot study I’m conducting at WWF on MPAs in the Baltic Sea region – looks at whether the correct regulations are in place within an MPA. (In this context, MPA effectiveness is a broader term that also includes aspects such as a site’s age, legal status, and financing. I use efficiency to talk about a narrower concept that addresses three building blocks – MPA protection aims, regulations, and pressures.) The correct regulations for an MPA depend on what the site aims to protect, but also on the local pressures acting on the MPA. For example, an MPA protecting a bottom-dwelling fish species and its habitats in an area with intensive leisure boating should have regulations on anchoring and other bottom-disturbing human activities.

Usually the biggest challenge is the lack of detailed knowledge of the existing pressures. Logically, the features the MPA aims to protect are known already when the MPA is established. However, many MPAs have been established without thorough knowledge about the existing pressures in the area. This includes not only pressures within the MPA but also pressures outside its borders, which can hamper the protection efforts inside the MPA. In addition, past pressures – for which the source already has been eliminated – can still have a large effect on the ecosystem. This is the case in many areas of the Baltic Sea, where nutrient flow from land runoff has been significantly reduced, but the circulation of the nutrients already accumulated in the marine system still causes eutrophication many years later.

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Political will is a rare and precious commodity

By Angelique Songco

The biggest challenge in our part of the world is getting decision-makers, policy-makers, and government leaders on board enough for them to positively influence the outcomes of MPA management efforts. Political will is a precious commodity, made even more so by its rarity. With political will, the funds to manage one’s MPA are assured, and the support needed to try out new solutions is in place.  

As practitioners we need to seriously consider ways of inspiring support from the people who hold the purse strings and the influence to make a difference. Often they are not interested – or they are too distracted – to learn more about the value of our sites. New ways of reaching out, and getting our message across to people who are alien to our cause, need to be found.

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Most difficult challenge is coordination among institutions

By Sandra Bessudo

For me the most difficult challenge that MPAs face is coordination among the different institutions and actors. This is not only the case for a particular marine area but also between different networks of MPAs – allowing the connectivity of ecosystems and species, especially when the species are migratory.

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For marine conservation to be effective, MPAs must have societal and community support

By Nathan J. Bennett

One of the biggest challenges faced by the global MPA community is social license. By this I mean that for marine conservation efforts to be successful and effective, they need to have societal and community support prior to implementation and during ongoing management.

Broad societal support and advocacy for MPAs is needed to drive political will and motivate governments to adequately support marine protected area management. Research has shown that adequate long-term financial support is necessary for effective MPA management.

Also, when the needs, rights, and voices of local people are not taken into account during the creation and ongoing management of MPAs, this can lead to local opposition and backlash. Otherwise for coastal communities, small-scale fishers, and small island developing states (SIDS) that already face an array of pressures, MPAs can be perceived as yet another injustice in a sea of injustices.

There are two actions that can help to increase social license for MPAs. First, ongoing investment in efforts to educate the public and local communities about MPAs is needed. The public needs to understand the answers to such basic questions as: What are marine protected areas? What are their potential benefits and drawbacks? How do MPAs fit in with other marine management and conservation actions and approaches? Politicians and policy makers also need to have a clear rationale for creating MPAs.

Second, to overcome opposition and engender local support, the human dimensions of the different contexts where conservation occurs need to be taken into account. This needs to occur during the planning of MPA networks, in the set-up of governance structures, and when management decisions are made. But local people should not be included in a token manner. Engagement needs to be thorough and genuine. Employing the conservation social sciences is one rigorous and transparent way that economic, social, cultural, and political considerations can be included in planning and management for small coastal MPAs and even large-scale MPAs. The actions of marine conservation organizations might also be guided by a code of conduct to ensure fair, just, and accountable marine conservation actions.

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