Marine Protected Area

A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of the world's seas, oceans, estuaries or in the US, the Great Lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. MPAs can provide economic benefits by supporting the fishing industry through the revival of fish stocks, as well as job creation and other market benefits via ecotourism. The value of MPA to mobile species is unknown.

There are a number of global examples of large marine conservation areas. The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, is situated in the central Pacific Ocean, around Hawaii, occupying an area of 1.5 million square kilometers. The area is rich in wild life, including the green turtle and the Hawaiian monkfish, alongside 7,000 other species, and 14 million seabirds. In 2017 the Cook Islands passed the Marae Moana Act designating the whole of the country's marine exclusive economic zone, which has an area of 1.9 million square kilometers as a zone with the purpose of protecting and conserving the "ecological, biodiversity and heritage values of the Cook Islands marine environment". Other large marine conservation areas include those around Antarctica, New Caledonia, Greenland, Alaska, Ascension Island, and Brazil.

As areas of protected marine biodiversity expand, there has been an increase in ocean science funding, essential for preserving marine resources. In 2020, only around 7.5 to 8% of the global ocean area falls under a conservation designation. This area is equivalent to 27 million square kilometres, equivalent to the land areas of Russia and Canada combined, although some argue that the effective conservation zones (ones with the strictest regulations) occupy only 5% of the ocean area (about equivalent to the land area of Russia alone). Marine conservation zones, as with their terrestrial equivalents, vary in terms of rules and regulations. Few zones rule out completely any sort of human activity within their area, as activities such as fishing, tourism, and transport of essential goods and services by ship, are part of the fabric of nation states.

Terminology

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines a protected area as:

A clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values.

This definition is intended to make it more difficult to claim MPA status for regions where exploitation of marine resources occurs. If there is no defined long-term goal for conservation and ecological recovery and extraction of marine resources occurs, a region is not a marine protected area.

"Marine protected area (MPA)" is a term for protected areas that include marine environment and biodiversity.

Other definitions by the IUCN include (2010):

Any area of the intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment.

United States Executive Order 13158 in May 2000 established MPAs, defining them as:

Any area of the marine environment that has been reserved by federal, state, tribal, territorial, or local laws or regulations to provide lasting protection for part or all of the natural and cultural resources therein.

The Convention on Biological Diversity defined the broader term of ''marine and coastal protected area'' (MCPA):

Any defined area within or adjacent to the marine environment, together with its overlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by legislation or other effective means, including custom, with the effect that its marine and/or coastal biodiversity enjoys a higher level of protection than its surroundings.

An apparently unique extension of the meaning is used by NOAA to refer to protected areas on the Great Lakes of North America.

History

The form of marine protected areas trace the origins to the World Congress on National Parks in 1962. In 1976, a process was delivered to the excessive rights to every sovereign state to establish marine protected areas at over 200 nautical miles.

Over the next two decades, a scientific body of evidence marked the utility in the designation of marine protected areas. In the aftermath of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, an international target was established with the encompassment of ten percent of the world's marine protected areas.

On 28 October 2016 in Hobart, Australia, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources agreed to establish the first Antarctic and largest marine protected area in the world encompassing in the Ross Sea. Other large MPAs are in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, in certain exclusive economic zones of Australia and overseas territories of France, the United Kingdom and the United States, with major ( or larger) new or expanded MPAs by these nations since 2012—such as Natural Park of the Coral Sea, Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area.

When counted with MPAs of all sizes from many other countries, as of April 2023 there are more than 16,615 MPAs, encompassing 7.2% of the world's oceans (26,146,645 km²), with less than half of that area – encompassing 2.9% of the world's oceans – assessed to be fully or highly protected according to the MPA Guide Framework.

As of 2021, UNESCO preserves more than 50 marine protected areas, inscribed as marine world heritage sites, in recognition for their unique marine biodiversity, outstanding marine ecosystems, unique undersea geological processes and extraordinary aquatic beauty.

Classifications

Several types of compliant MPA can be distinguished:
*A totally marine area with no significant terrestrial parts.
*An area containing both marine and terrestrial components, which can vary between two extremes; those that are predominantly maritime with little land (for example, an atoll would have a tiny island with a significant maritime population surrounding it), or that is mostly terrestrial.
*Marine ecosystems that contain land and intertidal components only. For example, a mangrove forest would contain no open sea or ocean marine environment, but its river-like marine ecosystem nevertheless complies with the definition.

IUCN offered seven categories of protected area, based on management objectives and four broad governance types.

Related protected area categories include the following;

*World Heritage Site (WHS) – an area exhibiting extensive natural or cultural history. Maritime areas are poorly represented, however, with only 46 out of over 800 sites.
* Man and the Biosphere – UNESCO program that promotes "a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere". Under article 4, biosphere reserves must "encompass a mosaic of ecological systems", and thus combine terrestrial, coastal, or marine ecosystems. In structure they are similar to Multiple-use MPAs, with a core area ringed by different degrees of protection.
*Ramsar site