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Marine Protected Areas: The National Parks of the Ocean

Black coral and white star coral in Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserve. Jiangang Luo/Marine Photobank.

Many people are drawn to visit State and National Parks in the United States, by their natural beauty, quietness, freshness of the air, or simply the potential to see the park's resident flora and fauna. National Parks represent some of the last remaining wilderness in America. While these terrestrial parks draw a lot of attention and tourists annually, there exists a wilderness off the coast of the United States that is just as beautiful and wild and ecologically important. These are special underwater parks where unique and diverse marine ecosystems are protected by law, though the number pales in comparison to land-based parks.

What Exactly is a Marine Protected Area?

An underwater sign posted at a popular diving site on the Great Barrier Reef. Malo Hosken/Marine Photobank.

A no-entry zone is an area where no one is allowed access except with a special permit issued by the government. No-take zones, generally referred to as Marine Reserves, are areas where extractive activities are prohibited, such as oil drilling or fishing, however other non-damaging activities are permitted, such as swimming, scuba diving and sometimes catch and release fishing. Multiple-use zones allow recreational and extractive commercial uses but they are subject to additional regulations and scrutiny to balance these uses with conservation and ensure the environment’s sustainability. This management or regulation can include seasonal fishery closures, catch limits, bans on taking reproductive individuals, or bans or restrictions on mineral extraction or waste dumping. Since a single MPA may include more than one type of zone, it is important to understand exactly what regulations are applicable within different areas of the MPA .

Benefits

Scientists have found that MPAs provide benefits that extend far beyond simply safe-guarding the organisms within the protected area. The establishment of an MPA, especially a no-take Marine Reserve, can lead to an increase in species abundance, diversity, and size of fish in the reserve itself as well as in the surrounding area. For many species of fish, older reproductive females can produce more offspring than younger reproductive females, depending on environmental conditions. In addition many species of fish and invertebrates take several years before reaching maturity, so MPAs give fish and invertebrates a chance to grow and reproduce, and to do so even into old age, when they can produce the maximum amount of offspring. Furthermore, these areas may also help maintain and improve the ecosystem’s resiliency to pollutants and other stressors, such as climate change. From a human perspective, MPAs contribute to ecotourism, providing jobs and income to the local community. Finally, not only are MPAs a useful tool for scientific research, they also provide great cultural, recreational and personal value to the general public (Australia CDEH).

Real Life MPAs

Diverse and full of life coral reef within marine protected area at Simillian Islands (Thailand, Andaman Sea). Konstantin Tkachenko/Marine Photobank

Currently, less than 2% of the entire ocean is protected and therefore receive the potential benefits of MPAs, though more are created every year. Within the past couple of years, Southern California has made a big push to set up a system of 37 new MPAs, bringing the total number of protected areas off the Southern Coast to 50, including of 354 square miles. These efforts include 19 new “No-Take” State Marine Conservation areas and 8 new “No-Take” State Marine Reserves. In addition, there are 18 new or modified State Marine Conservation Areas that allow limited recreational and commercial take (DFG CA). In 2006, George Bush created one of the largest MPAs in the world, Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument, in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. This MPA covers 140,000 square miles of ocean, home to over 7,000 different marine organisms, many of which can only be found in these waters. Limited permitted activities include research, native Hawaiian practices, conservation, education, and recreation (currently limoited to selected visits to the WWII memorial at Midway) (PMNM).

View a map of the MPA system in Southern California, or take a look at an interactive map of all U.S. MPAs.

Implementation and Other Strategies

There are many different ways of creating and implementing MPAs. Certain practices work well in some places but do not work at all in others. Some nations like the U.S. implement MPAs using federal, state, tribal, territorial or local laws and regulations. Many developing nations with more limited resources rely on  local and community action to implement and manage MPAs. For example, several Pacific island communities are building upon already established local fishing area rights. The chiefs of these villages have practiced seasonal closures and restrictions on fishing practices in their zones for generations. These communities are now getting outside help, often from NGOs like SeaWeb in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, on how to improve management, improve stock assessments and other monitoring techniques, as well as set up Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs). Typically, 10-15 percent of the LMMA is set aside as a no-take zone  These areas are considered to be quite effective as they do not require a great deal of resources to manage because the village communities monitor and regulate the areas themselves (WRI). However MPAs are implemented, they provides great benefits to the marine life, the people living off the coast and those visiting the areas, and improve the overall health of the ocean, which in turn is so vital to our lives.

Read more information on SeaWeb's work with LMMAs in the Pacific.

Learn more about the work of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries Program and National Marine Protected Areas Center.

List of Works Cited

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Retrieved January 24, 2012. http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/about/welcome.html

Locally Managed Marine Areas. World Resources Institute. Retrieved January 24, 2012. http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8090

The Benefits of Marine Protected Areas. September 2003. Commonwealth Department of Environment and Heritage. Retrieved January 24, 2012. http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mpa/publications/pubs/benefits-mpas.pdf

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