Features

Taking us down the wrong path?

Marine Protected Areas

Words by Peter Jones

Targets for marine conservation have been important since 1998, when 1,605 scientists from around the world signed a call for governments to protect 20% of the world’s seas from all threats by 2020. Since then, several formal targets for marine protected area coverage have been announced. The most significant of these is the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi target, which stipulates that at least 10% of the world’s seas should be effectively conserved through systems of marine protected areas by 2020.

Increasingly, the targets have been achieved by designating giant marine protected areas, often around remote islands. The first of these was the 340,000-square-kilometre (131,275-square-mile) Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, designated in 2000 and larger than all of the United States’ national parks combined. This giant marine protected area was later included in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which is even larger at 362,000 square kilometres (139,800 square miles). Initially open to bottom trawling, the area was protected from all fishing in 2011 because, although ‘bigger is better’, it is also considered that ‘no-take is best’. The race was on.

There have been many more designations in the competition to declare the largest marine protected areas in the world and add to the list of ‘flagship’ giant sanctuaries. Many governments have joined in the race and it has been enthusiastically supported by conservation campaign groups and donors – all keen to gain the green credentials associated with such designations. This has led to 80% of global marine protected area coverage being contained in just 16 such large, remote reserves, so without them we would be even further from achieving the 10% target. Recent research on the effectiveness of marine protected areas* provides scientific evidence to support the race. It found that there are five key features of marine protected areas that promote the achievement of effective conservation: they need to be large, well enforced, no-take, old and isolated from areas that are fished. However, a related paper argues that marine protected areas are increasingly biased towards remote areas that haven’t been commercially exploited. This means that they can often be closed with limited political costs (they tend to be remote, in overseas territories where few, if any, voters live) and with relatively small economic costs (commercial exploiters tend to be foreign fishing vessels).

From the perspective of national governments, it is clear that giant and remote marine protected areas are win-win in that they gain green credentials and contribute to achieving the Aichi target. Why go through the politically and economically expensive process of designating small marine protected areas around the mainland when you can designate vast marine protected areas in overseas territories with minimal costs and many gains? From the perspective of conservation campaigners and donors, such sanctuaries deliver high-profile benefits in that they safeguard large areas of relatively pristine sea from the pressures of the fishing industry. The persuasiveness of such rationales is evident in the growing number of them and the proportion of global marine protected area coverage that they represent.

Illegal fishing poses a major threat to Palau. In June 2015, the government burned four Vietnamese 'blue boats' that were caught fishing illegally and found with a number of protected species on board. Because the Palau National Marine Sanctuary now exists, it is easier to identify and stop illegal fishing in the country’s exclusive economic zone.
Photo by Jef f Barabe | The Pew Charitable Trusts

There are, however, several major problems with this trend, as the Aichi target is about much more than coverage. It states that marine protected areas must be effective in that restrictions are enforced – but vastness and remoteness pose major challenges to enforcement. Although emerging technology that uses satellite surveillance can help to detect illegal fishing vessels, it is still difficult to intercept them with fisheries patrol boats (which are very expensive to operate in out-of-the-way areas) or by gaining enough evidence remotely to secure a guilty verdict in court. Detection alone is not enough; vessels must be detained, sufficient evidence gathered, successful prosecutions achieved and penalties applied that are sufficient to deter other fishers. There are concerns that the pace at which the giant marine protected areas are being designated exceeds the pace at which enforcement capacity is being developed, and that some are ‘paper parks’ that provide only an illusion of marine conservation.

The Aichi target also specifies that systems of marine protected areas should be representative in that they protect typical examples of species and habitats in each of the world’s marine bioregions. They should also be close enough to one another that ecological processes can be connected. Focusing on a few very large and remote marine protected areas will not achieve representative and well-connected networks of marine protected areas, as they will always be patchy and separated by large expanses of unprotected ocean. Inshore ‘metropolitan’ seas with lots of users represent a challenge, but such areas need to be included in marine protected area networks if the latter are to be representative and well connected. It could also be argued that it is important to conserve places that are under pressure and that people rely on, even if such marine protected areas may have to be smaller and provide for some fishing. Marine conservation should be as much about promoting sustainable use in metropolitan seas as it is about promoting no use in remote, residual seas.

Last but certainly not least, the Aichi target states that marine protected area networks should be equitably managed, in that their costs and benefits should be fairly distributed. Giant and remote marine protected areas are inclined to be located where only a small number of people live, yet these people tend to depend heavily on marine resources. It would therefore be unfair to close the area to extractive activities. Although such people may be politically remote, their rights should not be marginalised by marine protected areas.

The race to designate marine protected areas that are vast and remote could be slowing progress towards achieving the Aichi target for effective, representative, well-connected and equitable networks of marine protected areas. It may even be taking us down the wrong track. It’s clear that in the same way that marine protected areas need to conserve a diversity of species, networks of them need to include a diversity of types of protected areas – not only giant ones, but also smaller ones in metropolitan seas that promote sustainable use. It is important that the race towards giant marine protected areas does not divert attention, resources and political will away from the other types of sanctuary that are necessary for fulfilling marine conservation targets.

Previous chapter

Next chapter