How Are Our MPAs Doing? Challenges in Assessing Global Patterns in Marine Protected Area Performance

Are Caribbean MPAs making progress toward their goals and objectives?

“…MPAs in the Caribbean and elsewhere are working toward the Aichi Targets for amount of area covered (albeit slowly), however it is not clear if the MPAs are effectively managed e.g., [15]. One effort examined MPA management performance in Jamaica, Belize and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and highlighted some of the benefits of the evaluation process and documents produced [16].…”

Pollution exposure on marine protected areas: A global assessment

“…A lack of holistic considerations for the interlinked social-ecological system interactions and externalities can cause undesired outcomes for MPAs (Fox et al, 2014). This has led many MPAs to be considered 'paper parks', existing primarily as a part of a theoretical agenda rather than a practical mitigation, socio-economic enhancing or conservationenabling entity (Bennett and Dearden, 2014;Halpern, 2014).…”

Linking ecological condition to enforcement of marine protected area regulations in the greater Caribbean region

“…MPAs that fail to meet conservation goals are often labeled "paper parks", existing only in name [24][25][26]. Large-scale multi-country comparisons of governance features and scientific studies measuring the impacts of MPAs are necessary to understand the aspects of MPA management that are linked to positive outcomes such as maintaining ecosystem structure, function, and delivery of ecosystem services [2,14,27].…”

“…The management of MPAs has relied on a diverse set of governance strategies, which have included penalties, incentives and appeals to user values, attitudes, and beliefs [6][7][8][9]. While much funding and effort has been put into the development of MPAs [4,[10][11][12] those governance strategies that lead to positive social and environmental outcomes remain poorly understood [13,14]. Wide variation has been observed in the effects of MPAs on ecological [15][16][17][18][19] and social factors [20][21][22][23], yet explanations of the drivers of this variation remain tenuous.…”