Notes & News: Global MSP indicator – Oceans at/past carrying capacity – Ocean governance reform – Responding to climate change – Connecticut MSP legislation – UK Blue New Deal – Belize ecosystem services framework – Redistribution of marine biodiversity
Global MSP indicator proposed for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals In September 2015, the United Nations adopted a post-2015 development agenda focused on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. These SDGs aim to improve development...
From the Archives: Payment for ecosystem services: An idea whose time has come for marine resource management? (MEAM October-November 2014, Issue 8:1)
Editor’s Note: From the Archives is a new feature to call attention to past MEAM articles whose perspectives and insight remain relevant. Highlights: Strengthening the business case for Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) Gaining support from stakeholders for a PES...
Assessing the state of the art in MPA management training programs
In 1999, Graeme Kelleher, former chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, wrote in his classic publication Guidelines for Marine Protected Areas: “The management of MPAs is becoming as sophisticated as that of many commercial organizations,...
Perspective | Can local management of fisheries through periodic closures help to kick-start marine conservation efforts?
By Steve Rocliffe and Alasdair Harris
For many years, the Vezo – traditional fishers in southwest Madagascar – saw marine conservation as a threat, a way of preventing them from accessing their fishing grounds. This is perhaps unsurprising in these semi-nomadic communities, where seafood is the sole source of protein in 99% of meals and income is much less than US $2 per day. The prospect of waiting years for the uncertain benefit of fish spillover from a protected area represented too high a risk – and too severe an economic sacrifice – to be a workable solution.