A diverse portfolio of marine protected areas can better advance global conservation and equity

Details

• Journal Title:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Personal Author:
  Gill, David A. ; Lester, Sarah E. ; Free, Christopher M. ; Pfaff, Alexander ; Iversen, Edwin ; Reich, Brian J. ; Yang, Shu ; Ahmadia, Gabby ; Andradi-Brown, Dominic A. ; Darling, Emily S. ; Edgar, Graham J. ; Fox, Helen E. ; Geldmann, Jonas ; Trung Le, Duong ; Mascia, Michael B. ; Mesa-Gutiérrez, Roosevelt ; Mumby, Peter J. ; Veverka, Laura ; Warmuth, Laura M.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; OPR (Office of Protected Resources)
• Description:
  Marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely used for ocean conservation, yet the relative impacts of various types of MPAs are poorly understood. We estimated impacts on fish biomass from no-take and multiple-use (fished) MPAs, employing a rigorous matched counterfactual design with a global dataset of >14,000 surveys in and around 216 MPAs. Both no-take and multiple-use MPAs generated positive conservation outcomes relative to no protection (58.2% and 12.6% fish biomass increases, respectively), with smaller estimated differences between the two MPA types when controlling for additional confounding factors (8.3% increase). Relative performance depended on context and management: no-take MPAs performed better in areas of high human pressure but similar to multiple-use in remote locations. Multiple-use MPA performance was low in high-pressure areas but improved significantly with better management, producing similar outcomes to no-take MPAs when adequately staffed and appropriate use regulations were applied. For priority conservation areas where no-take restrictions are not possible or ethical, our findings show that a portfolio of well-designed and well-managed multiple-use MPAs represents a viable and potentially equitable pathway to advance local and global conservation.
• Keywords:
  Multidisciplinary
• Source:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(10)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2313205121
• ISSN:
  0027-8424 ; 1091-6490
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY-NC-ND
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5e26e09afc63121bfb08f870ae77eb93df7b8a414d2cb38254b3ecfd6174c6a9070fa4b7fd4bd2707a1c3b49c91fbbcb9ba3c770109f6aa52d29fdc0fb5da857
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/62920/noaa_62920_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.22 MB ]