Marine Protected Areas: At the Crossroads of Nature Conservation and Fisheries Management

Abstract

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are designated parts of the ocean that restrict human activities to a certain degree. MPAs are established around the world using a wide range of legislative instruments and thus come in a variety of forms and shapes. Despite being regarded as the “cornerstone” of global marine conservation efforts, they currently cover less than 10% of the ocean surface. Individual MPAs aim to achieve goals ranging from the protection of specific habitats or species to sustaining certain commercial activities, such as fishing. By default, the establishment of MPAs intertwines social, ecological and economic considerations. Yet, the emphasis put on each of these domains can vary substantially when setting on-the-ground objectives, frequently creating conflict among stakeholders. In this manuscript, we first discuss current international conservation targets as well as potential future goals and delve into the question of how to assess the effectiveness of MPAs. Subsequently, we discuss the ambivalent role of this widely applied management tool at the crossroads between biodiversity conservation and fisheries management. Placing MPAs in a social-ecological framework, we call for clear and measurable goals to evaluate MPAs from an interdisciplinary perspective. Finally, we present the Baltic Sea, with its high degree of anthropogenic impact, long fishing history and comparatively extensive MPA coverage, as an interesting case study to investigate the role of MPAs in promoting a sustainable management of the ocean.

Marine protected areas can be useful but are not a silver bullet for kelp conservation

“…The degree of protection within a MPA can vary widely, ranging from no‐access and no‐take areas where some human activities are prohibited to partially protected areas where most activities are allowed to different degrees (Grorud‐Colvert et al., 2021). Fishing is commonly regulated within no‐take MPAs, along with other direct pressures such as harvesting, dredging, anchoring, dumping, and construction (Kriegl et al., 2021). Marine protected areas—and in particular, no‐take marine reserves—can be effective at increasing abundances of fished or other harvested species and often support larger numbers of bigger and higher trophic level fish compared to exploited areas (Coleman et al., 2015; Gill et al., 2017; Pendleton et al., 2018).…”

“…Despite much‐welcomed prospects of a strengthened ambition to conserve kelp forests, the conservation efficacy of policies aimed at rapidly increasing the extent of protection has been questioned (Agardy et al., 2003; Costello & Ballantine, 2015). Area‐based protection in the marine environment is known to generate variable conservation and socioeconomic benefits, as “protection” comes in a wide range of shapes and sizes (Kriegl et al., 2021; Relano & Pauly, 2023). The concept of area‐based protection and the underlying mechanisms for its efficacy have been developed in terrestrial systems and applied often in marine systems to reduce overfishing.…”

Measuring Progress: Water-related Ecosystems and the SDGs

“…Factors such as sedimentation, plastic pollution, oil spills, climate change, eutrophication and the risk of introduced pests are only rarely addressed in the context of marine protected areas (MPAs) (Kriegl et al 2021). It would be problematic if MPAs collectively had any impact on measured changes in chlorophyll-a or on the risk of eutrophication in a nation's coastal waters.…”

Vulnerability and spatial competition: The case of fisheries and offshore wind projects

“…This scenario (1) represents the residual vulnerabilitythe vulnerability the fleet have even if they can access the area -The other extreme scenario prohibits any operation in the vicinity of the area all year round. Scenario 7 (initial scenario) simulates this situation, which is close to the creation of a marine protected area (D1=100 and D2=100), with no or greatly reduced fishing opportunities (Kriegl et al, 2021;Sala and Giakoumi, 2018). Between these two limited cases, management authorities have several options.…”