Here, I wax on about Marine protected Areas (MPAs) and their importance in saving the oceans, the planet, and ourselves. I have waxed on about conservation issues in past blogs and will do so again. It’s important. This one is a little more of a ramble, associated with the state of my mind at the moment I suspect.
In the US, there are more than 1700 area designated Marine Protected Areas, which are marine regions with some level of protection. The largest is Papahanaumokuakea at 1,515,714 square km.
The amount of area protected above may cause you to think that much of the ocean is protected. It is not. The addition of Papahanaumokuakea in 2006, and additions of other protected areas since, bring the percentage of the ocean under some kind of protected category to about 8% (some estimate lower, but I’ll try to be optimistic here).
The level of protection matters: An area may be designated a Marine Protected Area yet still allow fishing, recreation, or other activities. In addition, MPAs often have zones, some areas being fully protected, while other areas allow fishing, for example. MPAsThe percentage of the ocean that is designated highly, or fully protected is under 3%.
Levels of Protection for MPAs: I expected more information on this, but it turns out that designating the level of protection has not been consistent, and thus, universal levels are just beginning to occur.
Here is a European-associated groups take on levels of protection.
Zone classification within an MPA:
1 - No-take / No-go
2 - No-take / Regulated access
3 - No-take/ Unregulated access
4 - Highly regulated extraction
5 - Moderately regulated extraction
6 - Weakly regulated extraction
7 - Very weakly regulated extraction
8 - Unregulated extraction
They have a decision tree so you can designate your local MPA. As you might expect, fishing gear weighs heavy on the levels. If any fishing is allowed, then the zone is above 3, which makes perfect sense. However, their system gets messier after this. For example, the impact, based on the type of allowed fishing gear, needs to be assessed. Then, you can do a bit of minor math to determine how much of your area is protected at what zone level, and based on the outcome, you have this level of protection for the whole MPA as below.
Full MPA Levels of Protection:
1-3 - Fully
3-5 - Highly
5-6 - Moderately
6-7 - Poorly
7-8 - Unprotected
Here is your homework assignment. Besides fishing, which the focus of the above, what aspects go into rating protected areas? Come up with a list, and set up your own ranking system. I bet 3 out of 10 will come up with a better systems than already exists.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) also has categories for protected areas focused on terrestrial zones. My comments, snarky as usual, are in parentheses.
1a. Light human use is allowed and strictly controlled (There is no level of protection that blocks people completely).
1b. Wishy-washy category, similar to Ia, but slightly less protection (whatever that means).
II. National Park. This means lots of people are visiting. (I’m sure this should not be level 2).
III. Natural monument or feature; designation aims to protect the feature. (Does that mean other aspects are not protected)
IV. Species management area: (Levels of protection vary, ugh).
V. Covered by a conservation plan. (No indication how strict a plan it is. Flexible classification, double ugh). No industrial fishing allowed, no mining allowed.
VI. “Protected” but with sustainable use of natural resources. (The quotes on protected are mine: use of natural resources means its not protected, but wait). No industrial fishing allowed (ok, at least some protection).
They modify these somewhat when designating MPAs. I added some of that above.
I’m going to clear this up for my mind: Based mostly on what is not allowed, and altering to my hearts content. This is not the way the categories are written; they use words like; Extraction of material is not consistent with the objectives of this category: WTF, written by a committee. All restrictions on higher-numbered categories apply to lower-numbered categories, even if not stated.
- No removal of species in any way. No fishing, no mining, no anchoring, no recreation activities. 2.
- No removal of species except for approved research. No fishing, no mining, no anchoring, no recreation activities.
- No industrial fishing, or aquaculture. No mining. No untreated waste discharge.
- No industrial fishing, or industrial scale aquaculture. No mining. No untreated waste discharge.
- No industrial fishing, or industrial scale aquaculture. No mining. No untreated waste discharge. Indigenous communities allowed to use and live within.
- Use of natural resources allowed with permits. This, of course, means this category is almost no protection.
First, we need to throw out the IUCN categories: I know they are all powerful and do lots of good. But let’s be serious; this categorization looks like it was made by a committee that could not come to worthwhile decisions, which is probably exactly what happened.
Classification systems are a good thing, mostly, but classification systems aside, let’s be serious; we know what is needed to save the oceans and save ourselves:
Make Larger MPAs, Make more MPAs, and place increased/better protection on all MPAs, to the level of no-fishing (zones 1-3 above, or level 1 under IUCN categories, for the entire MPA)
Australia is doing it right. Australia accounts for the largest global area of Marine Reserves. Other countries with a high level of protection on their waters are Germany, Latvia, and Belize. However, these countries have very little ocean area to protect, so their global impact is small. That’s where Australia wins out. In order of size protected, the countries helping preserve large areas of the ocean are Australia, Russia (yes, I was surprised too), Chile, Denmark, and the US of A.
To protect the watery zones, adjacent areas must also be protected. Near-coast region protection needs to be enhanced. The most crucial zones needing protection are those ecosystems skirting the boundary, salt marshes, sea grass beds, kelp, and mangrove forests. These areas, where we have lost so much already, are crucial as areas of high productivity, habitat diversity, nurseries for fish, and stabilization of shorelines.
Source and Further Reading:
Jenkins, C.N., & Van Houtan, K.S. 2016. Global and regional priorities for marine biodiversity protection. Biological Conservation, 204, 333–339.
Dataset for Jenkins, C,N. and Van Houtan, K.S. 2017. Data from: Global and regional priorities for marine biodiversity protection [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3mn1t
NOAA, National Ocean Service. The MPA Inventory.
https://marineprotectedareas.noaa.gov/dataanalysis/mpainventory/
Wonham, M., C. Gerstle, and C. Bates. 2022. Combining current and historical biodiversity surveys reveals order of magnitude greater richness in a British Columbia marine protected area. Canadian Field-Naturalist 136(4): 348–360. https:// doi.org/10.22621/cfn.v136i4.2903