The role of marine protected areas in enhancing biodiversity and ocean sustainability

Human activities are hugely affecting the marine environment, reducing biodiversity and diminishing fauna and flora at an unsustainable rate. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a tool to help reduce the effects of these... [ view full abstract ]

Human activities are hugely affecting the marine environment, reducing biodiversity and diminishing fauna and flora at an unsustainable rate. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a tool to help reduce the effects of these pressures.

Several aspects of an MPA affect its success in achieving its ecological goals. For example: age, size, no-take zone (NTZ) status, tourism level, isolation and enforcement all contribute to the success of the MPA. All MPAs vary massively in these factors.

This paper will examine the effectiveness of a range of MPAs across the world, and attempt to predict their ecological effectiveness in the face of potentially conflicting socio-economic and legal pressures. We used a Bayesian belief network to predict likely ecological success (enhancing stock sizes or increasing biodiversity) of 27 MPAs, both in the absence and presence of conflicting pressures. Understanding the conflicts that affect ecological success are an important first stage to begin examining the effectiveness of policy and legislation that has been applied to these 27 case studies.