There are numerous examples of no-take marine reserves effectively conserving fish stocks within their boundaries. However, no-take reserves can be rendered ineffective and turned into ‘paper parks’ through poor compliance and weak enforcement of reserve regulations. Long-term monitoring is thus essential to assess the effectiveness of marine reserves in meeting conservation and management objectives. This study documents the present state of the 15-year old no-take zone (NTZ) of South El Ghargana within the Nabq Managed Resource Protected Area, South Sinai, Egyptian Red Sea. Previous studies credited willing compliance by the local fishing community for the increased abundances of targeted fish within the designated NTZ boundaries compared to adjacent fished or take-zones. We compared benthic habitat and fish abundance within the NTZ and the adjacent take sites open to fishing, but found no significant effect of the reserve. Instead, the strongest evidence was for a simple negative relationship between fishing pressure and distance from the closest fishing village. The abundance of targeted piscivorous fish increased significantly with increasing distance from the village, while herbivorous fish showed the opposite trend. This gradient was supported by a corresponding negative correlation between the amount of discarded fishing gear observed on the reef and increasing distance from the village. Discarded fishing gear within the NTZ suggested decreased compliance with the no-take regulations. Our findings indicate that due to non-compliance the no-take reserve is no longer functioning effectively, despite its apparent initial successes and instead a gradient of fishing pressure exists with distance from the nearest fishing community.

ABSTRACT1. Ephemeral freshwater ponds are highly discrete, limiting dispersal for obligate freshwater species and creating disjunct distributions. 2. The rare, freshwater, ephemeral pond dwelling, brachiopod crustacean, Triops cancriformis (Bosc) exhibits a highly disjunct spatial distribution across the UK.3. This study examined 86 potentially suitable habitats for the resting cysts of this species on the north coast of the Solway estuary, south-west Scotland, to address two hypotheses: a. that there are populations of this species that, because of their unusual life history, remain undetected. b. that this species is able to disperse over distances of several kilometres. 4. Incubation of sediment samples demonstrated the presence of T. cancriformis at two previously unknown sites. One further serendipitous discovery of adults at another site is also reported, bringing to eight the number of discrete ponds where this species has been recorded on the north Solway coast since 1907.5. Only five natural populations are probably extant in the UK (with a sixth introduced population still extant). Four of these are on the Solway coast suggesting that this area is a conservation hotspot.6. The inference from the spatial and temporal pattern of records of T. cancriformis from the Solway coast is that this species is able to disperse between discrete habitat patches over distances of at least several kilometres and successfully colonize new sites.7. The mechanisms of this dispersal are unknown but transfer of material during floods or on the feet of deer, livestock, humans, waterfowl, or on farm machinery are all highly possible.