Global marine protection targets

The semester is now ending at Memorial University so this will be our last blog concluding the view of marine protected areas in Newfoundland. 

Throughout the world, MPAs are becoming important management tools, with policies that aid in reducing, preventing or reversing the ongoing decline in marine biodiversity and fisheries. In the review article by Louisa J. Wood et al. they stated that 0.65% of the world’s oceans plus 1.6% of the total marine area within the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) is protected. Out of this percentage only 0.08% of the oceans and 0.2% within the EEZ are no-take MPAs. 

The MPAs that do exist have a coastal bias and are mainly located next to land. This could be good for some circumstances when the majority of the continental shelf is usually fairly close to land and is where a lot of the marine organisms may gather. However, Newfoundland and Labrador has one of the largest extension of continental shelf compared to the rest and MPAs should be considered away from the coastal area. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador only has two small MPAs (Gilbert’s Bay and Eastport) and are surrounded by land. The figure below shows the un-proportional amount of MPAs with close approximation to the continent throughout the world.

Figure 1:  Marine protected areas as a function of distance from the coast, as area (bars) and numbers (dots) (Wood, 2008).

 

To have a network of functional MPAs the province, Canada and other countries need to have four main targets: 1. Have good distribution and coverage. 2. Have appropriate network characteristics ex. Larval dispersal protection. 3. Representativeness of habitat and organisms. 4. Growth of the network over time. Currently the MPAs created lack some of these aspects including distribution, sizing and the amount of MPAs created. Every MPA is different and it should not be assumed that the process that created the MPAs has beneficial mechanisms to regulate human activity, constant overseeing to measure if the regulations are being addressed, and monitoring to demonstrate that the MPA is helping and achieving the goal that the MPA was created to achieve. 

All in all, the main question is how do you get political figures to see that MPAs need to be created in a timely manner or some of the most diverse and unique habitats in the world’s ocean may slowly or quickly degrade or disappear. As mentioned in the previous blog, public acceptance and support is also needed in order to put pressure on political and federal authorities. If there was public support, political will, and the available resources we feel that Newfoundland and Labrador would be well on its way to create a sufficient network of MPAs in the future.  

References:

Louis J. Wood et al. 2008. Assessing progress towards global marine protection targets: shortfalls in information and action. Cambridge Journals.42.340-351.