Metaphors for marine conservation and management: The good, the bad, and the inaccurate
A new paper in Marine Policy (pre-print available for free in the MarXiv research repository) discusses the importance of effective metaphors for marine conservation and policy. Metaphors are figures of speech that describe something in terms more familiar to...
Challenges, successes, and lessons from building effective MPA manager networks: Part II – The regional networks
When each of us faces a challenge in life, our first reaction is often to ask a trusted friend or colleague, “Have you also faced this? If so, how did you handle it?” It’s the same in MPA planning and management. Practitioners face a common set of challenges –...
Perspective: Key lessons learned on public participation from the process to rezone the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
By Jon Day
The Representative Areas Program (RAP), which rezoned the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in a single planning initiative, was at the time the most comprehensive process of community involvement and participatory planning for any environmental issue in Australia. The outcome was that one-third of the Marine Park was declared as highly protected no-take zones in 2004, with the remainder of the park also zoned to provide various levels of protection.
Many of the lessons learned from RAP remain relevant today. The following 25 lessons are excerpted from a paper published in Coastal Management journal in December 2017, “Effective public participation is fundamental for marine conservation – lessons from a large scale MPA”. The paper is available for free here. More detail on each of the lessons is in the paper.
Seychelles, Brazil, and Chile announce significant new MPA designations
February and March were busy months for announcing large new MPAs. Seychelles, Brazil, and Chile all reported significant new sites.