ASOC
Nothing in the Southern Ocean makes bigger waves than the topic of marine protected areas (MPAs), an essential tool to safeguard species, protect benthic habitats and preserve overall ecosystem integrity.
At times there exists a divergence in opinion between ocean conservationists and fisheries managers on the need for MPAs. As a result of this, the acronym ‘MPA’ has become a broad catchall term when the reality could not be further from the truth.
However, MPAs set out to ultimately serve a simple premise– to mitigate against the impacts of human activity and protect the marine environment. Moreover, by reducing direct impacts from human activity, MPAs offer the added benefit of reducing the cumulative stressor environment that climate change is now exerting on the globe.
What is it?
It’s worth starting with what exactly is an MPA? Very briefly, MPAs are one tool within a suite of area-based management tools (ABMTs), which are spatial instruments for conserving and managing different forms of ocean use.
Some of these spatial tools focus on managing specific industrial activities in a given area, such as fishing, shipping and/or mining. Other tools are more cross-sectoral in their approach to management, such as marine protected and conserved areas (MPCAs), which include MPAs.
MPAs seek to coordinate several types of activity in the same area. This may mean restricting or eliminating certain activities altogether, dependent on what the objective of the MPA sets out to achieve. There are other area-based tools, such as other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs), but these are typically more sectorally determined, primarily focusing on a single specific activity.
So, now that you know what MPAs are, this blog will go into a few simple rules on how to make them effective and highlight the urgent need for rapid and effective implementation.
Larger is better
Size is an important factor in the success of MPAs. While MPAs come in a wide range of sizes, from just a few square kilometers to hundreds of thousands, they aren’t all equally effective.
Research has consistently shown that enacting protection at larger scales will protect a greater number of habitats and trophic levels, extending protection from species to entire ecosystems. The science all shows that MPAs at large-scales lead to increases in species’ biomass and genetic diversity, which in turn enhances overall species’ resilience to environmental impacts (Chavez-Molina et al., 2023).
Protecting larger areas enables a greater portion of mobile species’ life cycles to unfold within protected boundaries. Effectively planned networks of MPAs can complement one another to protect even the most highly migratory species, such as tuna, as they travel across oceans.
This is not a call to rip up small MPAs, far from it. It is a reminder of the urgency of enacting large-scale protected areas, which in turn can be used to complement the smaller protected areas that already exist within a given region.
More restrictive is better
MPAs are becoming an increasingly important tool for conserving biodiversity, especially in the light of climate change.
Some MPAs have very little management in place and, as a result, offer limited returns for conservation. These are colloquially known as ‘paper parks’ and are often used as an example to counter to the necessity of enacting MPAs more generally.
However, where there is strong management, in particular MPAs with no-take zones incorporated within their design, there can be enormous environmental benefits. These benefits include: greater benthic habitat integrity, increased abundance and individual sizes of species within MPA boundaries and beneficial spillover effects into adjacent waters (more on that later).
A review of 124 global marine reserves found that, within a decade of its implementation, a highly protected MPA (with little to no human activity permitted) achieves approximately 21% higher species richness, 28% larger organisms, and 6.7 times the fish biomass compared to nearby unprotected areas (Lester et al., 2009).
Partially protected MPAs achieve similar results, albeit with lower returns, with fish biomass reaching an average of 1.8 times greater than in unprotected areas (Sala and Giakoumi, 2018).
It is apparent that maximizing the benefits that MPAs offer requires maximizing restrictions on the amount and type of activity that can occur within MPA’s boundaries. However, in return for these restrictions hugely positive outcomes can be observed, safeguarding species and building increased resilience into ecosystems to mitigate against the growing pressures of climate change.
Benefits for all
While it is not their primary purpose, well-designed MPAs have also been shown to support fisheries that exist adjacent to the boundaries of the protected area.
As was mentioned earlier, MPAs increase the abundance and individual sizes of species. It is estimated that one hectare of a highly protected MPA produces, on average, at least 5 times as many fish offspring as an equivalent unprotected hectare (Sala and Giakoumi, 2018; Adams et al., 2021).
Moreover, as larger fish are more fecund than smaller fish of the same species, it creates greater reproductive potential, producing simultaneous benefits within the MPA and in the adjacent waters in what is known as the ‘spillover’ effect (Ashford et al., 2022).
Spillover is a term used to describe increased abundance and size of species just outside an MPA’s boundaries as a result of larval production and egg recruitment to the fishery, as well as increased abundance and size of mature fish (Lester et al., 2009; Adams et al., 2021).
Despite often being framed as a hindrance to fishing activity by those looking to exploit natural resources, MPAs have actually been proven to support nearby fisheries.
MPAs should instead be framed as both a tool to protect and conserve the ocean, whilst also being an approach used in conjunction other management tools, such as catch quotas and fisheries licenses, in achieving responsible fisheries.
A promise for Antarctic MPAS & ASOC’s mission
The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is the body responsible for implementing the CAMLR Convention and managing marine living resources in the Southern Ocean.
In 2009, CCAMLR established the South Orkney Islands Southern Shelf MPA, the first MPA agreed by CCAMLR and the world’s first high seas MPA. This was followed in 2016, when CCAMLR agreed to the Ross Sea Region MPA, the largest MPA in the world and represented a highpoint in CCAMLR’s nearly 40 years of existence.
Since the establishment of the Ross Sea Region MPA, progress on implementing a representative network of MPAs in the Southern Ocean, a commitment CCAMLR agreed to in 2009, has stalled.
CCAMLR Members have proposed four scientifically robust MPAs: Weddell Sea Phase 1 MPA, Weddell Sea Phase 2 MPA, East Antarctic MPA, and the Domain 1 MPA (D1MPA). All four MPA proposals are yet to be designated, despite an incredible amount of supporting data, with two gaining endorsements from CCAMLR’s Scientific Committee.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for 30% of ocean space to be protected by 2030. With the global High Seas Treaty yet to enter into force, CCAMLR is one of the only existing mechanisms able to establish MPAs in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) and deliver against the 30×30 target.
As the Southern Ocean represents 10% of the global ocean, 30×30 cannot be realized globally without CCAMLR’s contribution.
ASOC continues to fight for the implementation of these proposed MPAs, supporting new science to further the narrative for their urgent implementation as well as pushing governments to live up to the promises they have made – both in the Southern Ocean and globally.
The impacts of climate change and interests in industrial fishing are both growing in Antarctica and large-scale MPAs are urgently needed.
Time is not on our side.
CCAMLR Members must rejoin the path towards a representative system of MPAs in order to keep pace with global progress on marine protection and return to the original spirit on which the Antarctic Treaty System was founded.
Find out more on the topic and the need for MPAs in the Southern Ocean in our latest report
Adams, V., Douglass, L., Beaumont, T. and Boothroyd, T., 2021. Considerations for a marine protected area in CCAMLR MPA Planning Domain 9 – the Amundsen-Bellingshausen Sea, Centre for Conservation Geography.
Ashford, J., Dinniman, M., Brooks, C., Wei, L. and Zhu, G., 2022. Tying policy to system: Does the Ross Sea region marine reserve protect transport pathways connecting the life history of Antarctic toothfish? Marine Policy, 136, p.104903.
Chavez-Molina, V., Nocito, E.S., Carr, E., Cavanagh, R.D., Sylvester, Z., Becker, S.L., Dorman, D.D., Wallace, B., White, C. and Brooks, C.M., 2023. Managing for climate resilient fisheries: Applications to the Southern Ocean. Ocean & Coastal Management, 239, p.106580.
Lester, S., Halpern, B. and Grorud-Colvert, K., 2009. Biological effects within no-take marine reserves: a global synthesis. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 384: 33–46.
Sala, E. and Giakoumi, S., 2018. No-take marine reserves are the most effective protected areas in the ocean. ICES Journal of Marine Science 75: 1166–1168.