Are the benefits of MPAs enough to make them successful, fully utilized global conservation tools?

Globally, marine conservation practitioners advocate designing and developing coherent networks of MPAs in different ecoregions and large marine ecosystems of the world. The science is clear that highly protected,... [ view full abstract ]

Globally, marine conservation practitioners advocate designing and developing coherent networks of MPAs in different ecoregions and large marine ecosystems of the world. The science is clear that highly protected, ecologically connected, and spatially replicated MPAs afford marine biodiversity the best opportunity to persist and to recover from impacts (local or global, natural or anthropogenic).  Science has also described how current targets of 10% under the Convention of Biological Diversity or the Sustainable Development Goals may not be sufficient to maintain ecosystem integrity and functioning. At the same time it has described how we are failing geographically and systematically to reach even the current international target. Although the benefits of MPAs are evident and the calls for representative networks of MPAs have been frequent and global, progress toward on-the-ground protection has faltered severely due to several reasons, not least of which is stakeholder opposition as well as the lack of financial resources, technical capacity, and institutional will. Understanding the socio-economic and geopolitical challenges to MPA designation and enforcement and addressing them is critical for the global community to reach the current modest target, or to have the hope to increase this target to a more scientifically accepted percentage for adequate marine biodiversity management.