Reexamining the science of marine protected areas: linking knowledge to action

Abstract

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often implemented to conserve or restore species, fisheries, habitats, ecosystems, and ecological functions and services; buffer against the ecological effects of climate change; and alleviate poverty in coastal communities. Scientific research provides valuable insights into the social and ecological impacts of MPAs, as well as the factors that shape these impacts, providing useful guidance or "rules of thumb" for science-based MPA policy. Both ecological and social factors foster effective MPAs, including substantial coverage of representative habitats and oceanographic conditions; diverse size and spacing; protection of habitat bottlenecks; participatory decisionmaking arrangements; bounded and contextually appropriate resource use rights; active and accountable monitoring and enforcement systems; and accessible conflict resolution mechanisms. For MPAs to realize their full potential as a tool for ocean governance, further advances in policy-relevant MPA science are required. These research frontiers include MPA impacts on nontarget and wide-ranging species and habitats; impacts beyond MPA boundaries, on ecosystem services, and on resource-dependent human populations, as well as potential scale mismatches of ecosystem service flows. Explicitly treating MPAs as "policy experiments" and employing the tools of impact evaluation holds particular promise as a way for policy-relevant science to inform and advance science-based MPA policy.

Integrating impact evaluation in the design and implementation of monitoring marine protected areas

“…For MPA managers and others tasked with adaptive management, who require data at fine spatial resolution and in near real-time to inform management actions [40], the existing quasi-experimental evidence base probably represents a small fraction of the information needed to guide adaptive management decisions [41]. For example, an MPA manager may need to understand the distribution of specific social impacts (e.g.…”

Measuring MPAs in Continental North America: How Well Protected Are the Ocean Estates of Canada, Mexico, and the USA?

“…There is still strong opposition to MPAs despite the growing evidence that demonstrates significant benefits MPAs provide to coastal communities, including increasing the sustainability of fisheries, supporting the tourism and recreation, and ensuring ecosystem services from wave protection to carbon storage (Angulo-Valdes and Hatcher, 2010;Gaines et al, 2010a,b;Fox et al, 2012;Costello, 2014). Fully engaging stakeholders in the planning process will increase, though not guarantee, stakeholder buy-in and compliance (Guénette and Alder, 2007;Gleason et al, 2013;Lubchenco and Grorud-Colvert, 2015).…”

Multisite, Interdisciplinary Applications of Science to Marine Policy: The Conservation International Marine Management Area Science Program

“…As opposed to projects that rely primarily on secondary-source data, the MMAS program produced interdisciplinary primary-source data for multiple cases and locations. Much has been written about marine protected areas (MPAs) and MMAs (Agardy 1994;Jameson, Tupper, and Ridley 2002;Christie and White 2007;Charles and Wilson 2009;Cinner, Fuentes, and Randriamahazo 2009;Fox et al 2012;Hastings et al 2012) but no project has been conducted in as broad of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, original data-based, policymaking and interactive international format.…”