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Why is Ocean Conservation so important?

07 Jun 2022

https://oceanliteracy.unesco.org/ocean-conservation/

The ocean covers three-quarters of the Earth’s surface and feeds about half of the world’s population, as well as being home for millions of animal species – hundreds of thousands of which have yet to be found! The ocean also functions as a life-support system for our “blue planet”, regulating the climate on a global scale and producing over half of the oxygen we breathe . Despite this, mankind has mistreated these life-giving oceans to the point where around 40% of marine ecosystems have been harmed.

For far too long, people believed the ocean was endless and unaffected by human activity.

Scientists have just recently realised the terrible impact and ongoing hazard of human activities and behaviour . Our ocean is threatened by overfishing, climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, invasive species, and other types of human exploitation. 

Marine conservation as a concept, then, is actually relatively new. It wasn’t until the 1960s that it became widely accepted that major fish populations were declining and ecosystems were rapidly deteriorating. Today, marine conservation is regarded as one of the world’s most pressing scientific issues. 

Ecosystems have irreversibly changed, ocean management is fragmented, and seas are managed separately from their terrestrial (land) counterparts. Given that water covers 71% of our world, the status of our waterways has become one of our most serious concerns.

A variety of issues have had a harmful impact on our oceans in recent years :

• climate change
• overfishing
• acidification
• sedimentation

What are the policies and actions to reach the goal ?  

​​What is being done to fight for ocean conservation? And, even more importantly, what can you do in your everyday life to support it?

The good news is you can actually do a lot in your daily life to help safeguard the ocean and all the species it sustains. For example:

• Learn about and support your local or national marine protected zones, and look into volunteering possibilities there.
• If you travel, look for marine protected areas that are dedicated to the conservation of marine life, such as the Blue Parks.
• Only take pictures and leave footprints.
• Tell your legislators how vital it is to protect marine species.
• Tell your legislators that you believe it is critical to address climate change.
• Spread the word about what we can do to safeguard ocean ecosystems by talking to people about ocean species and ocean conservation.
• Stop using single-use plastics (such as supermarket bags, straws, to-go containers, and bottled drinks) and replace them with reusable alternatives . Let businesses know why you prefer or avoid their products.
• Reduce your reliance on fossil fuels by riding your bike, taking public transportation, attending virtual meetings and conferences to cut down on long-distance travel, Using renewable energy to power your home and consuming less meat, or no meat!
• Consume only sustainable fish (or none at all!). You may also help by purchasing only responsibly caught fish, while current research indicates that fishing is harmful to the ocean, and that eating no fish at all would be far better for marine ecosystems !
• Support groups dedicated to preserving marine biodiversity.
• Participate in a cleanup ! Many organisations , such as The Sea Cleaners and The Ocean Clean Up, are working on this and creating new technology. Supporting them is a fantastic way to help save the ocean!

The full list of conferences 

If you’re interested in learning more about the most recent advancements in terms of new technology and regulations to clean up our ocean, here’s a list of significant ocean-related conferences throughout the world.

Gordon Research Seminar and Conference — Ocean Biogeochemistry

30 Apr 2022 – 06 May 2022 • Castelldefels, Spain

This Ocean Biogeochemistry Seminar and Conference provides a unique opportunity to share and exchange new data and cutting-edge ideas. Ocean dynamics are driven by complex processes that are critical for ecosystem resilience. “Fundamental and interdisciplinary biogeochemical research that is vital to create a holistic understanding of our past, present, and future oceans” is the goal of this conference.

2022 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting

14 May 2022 – 22 May 2022 – Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States

“The world’s largest assembly of aquatic scientists, students, practitioners, resource agency employees, and industry representatives in history,” according to JASM (the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting).

Gordon Research Seminar and Conference — Ocean Mixing

04 Jun 2022 – 10 Jun 2022 – Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, United States

The impact of ocean mixing on the ocean and atmospheric systems, as well as on Earth and society in general, will be discussed during this conference.

Gordon Research Seminar and Conference — Ocean Global Change Biology

16 Jul 2022 – 22 Jul 2022 – Waterville Valley, United States

“Integrating Environmental, Organismal, and Community Complexity into Ocean Global Change Research” will be the theme of this forum.

UN Ocean Conference

27 Jun – 1 Jul 2022 – Lisbon, Portugal

The UN Ocean Conference will be co-hosted by the governments of Kenya and Portugal this year, and it will aim to address many of the issues that the COVID-19 outbreak has brought to light. We’ll strive to come up with important structural changes and common solutions during the meeting.

7th International Marine Debris Conference (7IMDC)

18 Sep – 23 Sep 2022 – Busan, Republic of Korea​

This is one of the oldest international conferences on the subject of marine debris and plastic pollution. Governments, industry, scientists, and society will come together to discuss the most recent research, strengthen cooperation, and discover answers to major global issues.

ICEOE 2022 — The 5th International Conference on Environment and Ocean Engineering

21 Oct 2022 – 23 Oct 2022 – Shandong, China

Shandong University is hosting ICEOE, which is one of the major platforms for sharing and exchanging breakthroughs in Environment and Ocean Engineering. It will bring together renowned scientists and researchers from all over the world to debate the most recent subjects in the field.

​​​ 5th International Symposium on the Effects of Climate Change on the World’s Oceans

17-21 April 2023 – Bergen, Norway

ECCWO-5 brings together scientists from around the world to better understand the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems and to identify potential adaptation and mitigation measures. It also provides the most up-to-date information on how our oceans are changing, what is at risk, and how to respond and work toward a more sustainable future.

More info and projects on ocean conservation

Marine protection atlas.

The Marine Conservation Atlas (MPAtlas), a Marine Conservation Institute initiative, was launched in 2012 with the goal of providing a more nuanced picture of worldwide marine protection. The goal of this project is to clarify, calculate, and illustrate the level of protection and implementation of marine protected zones around the world (MPAs). The identification and tracking of fully and highly protected regions is our major focus. These criteria will guide future discussions and goals for worldwide marine conservation efforts.

To ensure that marine protected areas (MPAs) truly safeguard marine biodiversity, we need guidelines. The Marine Conservation Institute started the Blue Parks program to recognize and reward excellent MPAs, as well as to encourage governments, managers, communities, and leaders to pursue effective conservation. The Blue Parks initiative aims to create a global ocean refuge system that protects at least 30% of the ocean’s biodiversity. The Blue Park Awards honour exceptional marine protected areas (MPAs), and the Blue Park criteria serve as a science-based benchmark for marine conservation effectiveness.

Ocean Care works on a number of different projects and campaigns to protect our ocean. With the campaign “Silent Oceans”, for example, Ocean Care wants to make sure marine life is protected against underwater noise. They are also launching a new program to fight the devastating effects deep sea mining is having on marine ecosystems. 

https://www.oceancare.org/en/our-work/ocean-conservation/

https://oceanconservancy.org/

https://www.oceanconservation.org/

https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/oceans

https://www.oecd.org/ocean/topics/ocean-conservation/

https://marine-conservation.org/why-protect-the-ocean/#:~:text=A%20healthy%20ocean%20regulates%20climate,emissions%20produced%20by%20human%20activities .

https://www.oysterworldwide.com/news/marine-conservation-important/

https://www.fao.org/zhc/detail-events/en/c/846698/

https://www.gvi.co.uk/blog/out-of-sight-front-of-mind-why-marine-conservation-is-so-important/

The Young Person’s Guide to the Mediterranean Action Plan and the Barcelona Convention

Ecosystem restoration, regeneration and rewilding. which are the differences, sustainable development goal 14: life below water.

Press Release

Study in nature: protecting the ocean delivers a comprehensive solution for climate, fishing and biodiversity.

Southern Line Islands

Photograph by Southern Line Islands

Groundbreaking global study is the first to map ocean areas that, if strongly protected, would help solve climate, food and biodiversity crises

London, UK (17 March 2021) —A new study published in the prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature today offers a combined solution to several of humanity’s most pressing challenges. It is the most comprehensive assessment to date of where strict ocean protection can contribute to a more abundant supply of healthy seafood and provide a cheap, natural solution to address climate change—in addition to protecting embattled species and habitats.

An international team of 26 authors identified specific areas that, if protected, would safeguard over 80% of the habitats for endangered marine species, and increase fishing catches by more than eight million metric tons. The study is also the first to quantify the potential release of carbon dioxide into the ocean from trawling, a widespread fishing practice—and finds that trawling is pumping hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the ocean every year, a volume of emissions similar to those of aviation.

“Ocean life has been declining worldwide because of overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change. Yet only 7% of the ocean is currently under some kind of protection,” said Dr. Enric Sala, explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society and lead author of the study, Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate .

“In this study, we’ve pioneered a new way to identify the places that—if strongly protected—will boost food production and safeguard marine life, all while reducing carbon emissions,” Dr. Sala said. “It’s clear that humanity and the economy will benefit from a healthier ocean. And we can realize those benefits quickly if countries work together to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030.”

To identify the priority areas, the authors—leading marine biologists, climate experts, and economists—analyzed the world’s unprotected ocean waters based on the degree to which they are threatened by human activities that can be reduced by marine protected areas (for example, overfishing and habitat destruction). They then developed an algorithm to identify those areas where protections would deliver the greatest benefits across the three complementary goals of biodiversity protection, seafood production and climate mitigation. They mapped these locations to create a practical “blueprint” that governments can use as they implement their commitments to protect nature.

The study does not provide a single map for ocean conservation, but it offers a first-in-kind framework for countries to decide which areas to protect depending on their national priorities. However, the analysis shows that 30% is the minimum amount of ocean that the world must protect in order to provide multiple benefits to humanity.

“There is no single best solution to save marine life and obtain these other benefits. The solution depends on what society—or a given country—cares about, and our study provides a new way to integrate these preferences and find effective conservation strategies,” said Dr. Juan S. Mayorga, a report co-author and a marine data scientist with the Environmental Market Solutions Lab at UC Santa Barbara and Pristine Seas at National Geographic Society.

The study comes ahead of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which is expected to take place in Kunming, China in 2021. The meeting will bring together representatives of 190 countries to finalize an agreement to end the world’s biodiversity crisis. The goal of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and ocean by 2030 (the “30x30” target) is expected to be a pillar of the treaty. The study follows commitments by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Commission and others to achieve this target on national and global scales.

Safeguarding Biodiversity

The report identifies highly diverse marine areas in which species and ecosystems face the greatest threats from human activities. Establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) with strict protection in those places would safeguard more than 80% of the ranges of endangered species, up from a current coverage of less than 2%.

The authors found that the priority locations are distributed throughout the ocean, with the vast majority of them contained within the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones of coastal nations.

The additional protection targets are located in the high seas—those waters governed by international law. These include the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (a massive underwater mountain range), the Mascarene Plateau in the Indian Ocean, the Nazca Ridge off the west coast of South America and the Southwest Indian Ridge, between Africa and Antarctica.

"Perhaps the most impressive and encouraging result is the enormous gain we can obtain for biodiversity conservation—if we carefully chose the location of strictly protected marine areas,” said Dr. David Mouillot, a report co-author and a professor at the Université de Montpellier in France. “One notable priority for conservation is Antarctica, which currently has little protection, but is projected to host many vulnerable species in a near future due to climate change."

Shoring up the Fishing Industry

The study finds that smartly placed marine protected areas (MPAs) that ban fishing would actually boost the production of fish—at a time when supplies of wild-caught fish are dwindling and demand is rising. In doing so, the study refutes a long-held view that ocean protection harms fisheries and opens up new opportunities to revive the industry just as it is suffering from a recession due to overfishing and the impacts of global warming.

“Some argue that closing areas to fishing hurts fishing interests. But the worst enemy of successful fisheries is overfishing—not protected areas,” Dr. Sala said.

The study finds that protecting the right places could increase the catch of seafood by over 8 million metric tons relative to business as usual.

“It’s simple: When overfishing and other damaging activities cease, marine life bounces back,” said Dr. Reniel Cabral, a report co-author and assistant researcher with the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and Marine Science Institute at UC Santa Barbara. “After protections are put in place, the diversity and abundance of marine life increase over time, with measurable recovery occurring in as little as three years. Target species and large predators come back, and entire ecosystems are restored within MPAs. With time, the ocean can heal itself and again provide services to humankind.”

Soaking up Carbon

The study is the first to calculate the climate impacts of bottom trawling, a damaging fishing method used worldwide that drags heavy nets across the ocean floor. It finds that the amount of carbon dioxide released into the ocean from this practice is larger than most countries’ annual carbon emissions, and similar to annual carbon dioxide emissions from global aviation.

“The ocean floor is the world’s largest carbon storehouse. If we’re to succeed in stopping global warming, we must leave the carbon-rich seabed undisturbed. Yet every day, we are trawling the seafloor, depleting its biodiversity and mobilizing millennia-old carbon and thus exacerbating climate change. Our findings about the climate impacts of bottom trawling will make the activities on the ocean’s seabed hard to ignore in climate plans going forward,” said Dr. Trisha Atwood of Utah State University, a co-author of the paper.

The study finds that countries with the highest potential to contribute to climate change mitigation via protection of carbon stocks are those with large national waters and large industrial bottom trawl fisheries. It calculates that eliminating 90% of the present risk of carbon disturbance due to bottom trawling would require protecting only about 4% of the ocean , mostly within national waters.

Closing a Gap

The study’s range of findings helps to close a gap in our knowledge about the impacts of ocean conservation, which to date had been understudied relative to land-based conservation.

“The ocean covers 70% of the earth—yet, until now, its importance for solving the challenges of our time has been overlooked,” said Dr. Boris Worm, a study co-author and Killam Research Professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “Smart ocean protection will help to provide cheap natural climate solutions, make seafood more abundant and safeguard imperiled marine species—all at the same time. The benefits are clear. If we want to solve the three most pressing challenges of our century—biodiversity loss, climate change and food shortages —we must protect our ocean.”

Additional Quotes from Supporters and Report Co-Authors

Zac Goldsmith, British Minister for Pacific and the Environment, UK

Kristen Rechberger, Founder & CEO, Dynamic Planet

Dr. William Chueng, Canada Research Chair and Professor, The University of British Columbia, Principal Investigator, Changing Ocean Research Unit, The University of British Columbia

Dr. Jennifer McGowan, Global Science, The Nature Conservancy & Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, Yale University

Dr. Alan Friedlander, Chief Scientist, Pristine Seas, National Geographic Society at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai'i

Dr. Ben Halpern, Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), UCSB

Dr. Whitney Goodell, Marine Ecologist, Pristine Seas, National Geographic Society

Dr. Lance Morgan, President and CEO, Marine Conservation Institute

Dr. Darcy Bradley, Co-Director of the Ocean and Fisheries Program at the Environmental Market Solutions Lab, UCSB

The study, Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate , answers the question of which places in the ocean should we protect for nature and people. The authors developed a novel framework to produce a global map of places that, if protected from fishing and other damaging activities, will produce multiple benefits to people: safeguarding marine life, boosting seafood production and reducing carbon emissions. Twenty-six scientists and economists contributed to the study.

Study’s Topline Facts

• Ocean life has been declining worldwide because of overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change. Yet only 7% of the ocean is currently under some kind of protection.
• A smart plan of ocean protection will contribute to more abundant seafood and provide a cheap, natural solution to help solve climate change, alongside economic benefits.
• Humanity and the economy would benefit from a healthier ocean. Quicker benefits occur when countries work together to protect at least 30% of the ocean.
• Substantial increases in ocean protection could achieve triple benefits, not only protecting biodiversity, but also boosting fisheries’ productivity and securing marine carbon stocks.

Study’s Topline Findings

• The study is the first to calculate that the practice of bottom trawling the ocean floor is responsible for one gigaton of carbon emissions on average annually. This is equivalent to all emissions from aviation worldwide. It is, furthermore, greater than the annual emissions of all countries except China, the U.S., India, Russia and Japan.
• The study reveals that protecting strategic ocean areas could produce an additional 8 million tons of seafood.
• The study reveals that protecting more of the ocean--as long as the protected areas are strategically located--would reap significant benefits for climate, food and biodiversity.

Priority Areas for Triple Wins

• If society were to value marine biodiversity and food provisioning equally, and established marine protected areas based on these two priorities, the best conservation strategy would protect 45% of the ocean, delivering 71% of the possible biodiversity benefits, 92% of the food provisioning benefits and 29% of the carbon benefits.
• If no value were assigned to biodiversity, protecting 29% of the ocean would secure 8.3 million tons of extra seafood and 27% of carbon benefits. It would also still secure 35% of biodiversity benefits.
• Global-scale prioritization helps focus attention and resources on places that yield the largest possible benefits.
• A globally coordinated expansion of marine protected areas (MPAs) could achieve 90% of the maximum possible biodiversity benefit with less than half as much area as a protection strategy based solely on national priorities.
• EEZs are areas of the global ocean within 200 nautical miles off the coast of maritime countries that claim sole rights to the resources found within them. ( Source )

Priority Areas for Climate

• Eliminating 90% of the present risk of carbon disturbance due to bottom trawling would require protecting 3.6% of the ocean, mostly within EEZs.
• Priority areas for carbon are where important carbon stocks coincide with high anthropogenic threats, including Europe’s Atlantic coastal areas and productive upwelling areas.

Countries with the highest potential to contribute to climate change mitigation via protection of carbon stocks are those with large EEZs and large industrial bottom trawl fisheries.

Priority Areas for Biodiversity

• Through protection of specific areas, the average protection of endangered species could be increased from 1.5% to 82% and critically endangered species from 1.1% to and 87%.
• the Antarctic Peninsula
• the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
• the Mascarene Plateau
• the Nazca Ridge
• the Southwest Indian Ridge
• Despite climate change, about 80% of today’s priority areas for biodiversity will still be essential in 2050. In the future, however, some cooler waters will be more important protection priorities, whereas warmer waters will likely be too stressed by climate change to shelter as much biodiversity as they currently do. Specifically, some temperate regions and parts of the Arctic would rank as higher priorities for biodiversity conservation by 2050, whereas large areas in the high seas between the tropics and areas in the Southern Hemisphere would decrease in priority.

Priority Areas for Food Provision

• If we only cared about increasing the supply of seafood, strategically placed MPAs covering 28% of the ocean could increase food provisioning by 8.3 million metric tons.

The Campaign for Nature works with scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and a growing coalition of over 100 conservation organizations around the world who are calling on policymakers to commit to clear and ambitious targets to be agreed upon at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kunming, China in 2021 to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030 and working with Indigenous leaders to ensure full respect for Indigenous rights.

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To learn more, visit www.nationalgeographic.org or follow us on Instagram , LinkedIn, and Facebook .

Protecting Marine Ecosystems

Learn about the types and goals of marine protected areas.

Biology, Ecology, Earth Science, Oceanography, U.S. History

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How do oceans affect you? If you live far from the coast , you might think they don’t. But life on this planet depends on the ocean. Its cover almost three-quarters of the planet and hold 97 percent of Earth’s water. The phytoplankton that live on the oceans’ surface produce half of the oxygen in the atmosphere . Oceans are a vital source of food and other resources and an economic engine for many communities.

For all the ocean provides us, we haven ’t always been so responsible in our stewardship . “The ocean was thought of as a dumping ground for so long,” says Caitlyn Toropova of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). “There was a sense that there was no way we could harm it because it is so vast .” But human activities are having a negative impact on many of the world’s oceans, jeopardizing marine life, habitats , and ecosystems . These threats include overfishing or destructive fishing, coastal development , pollution and runoff , and the introduction of non-native species . Climate change is also having a big effect by causing warming seas and ocean acidification . The realization that something needs to be done to stem or reverse the damage has led to the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs). Broadly speaking, a marine protected area (MPA) is a region of the ocean where human activity is limited. Specifics differ around the globe, but the United States defines a marine protected area 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.” There are approximately 5,000 designated MPAs around the world but many more that are not officially recognized, says Toropova, the conservation group’s coordination officer for marine protected areas. The United States has 1,700 MPAs. That may sound like a lot, but less than one percent of the world’s oceans is protected. Countries around the world have committed to protecting 10 percent, Toropova says. But “even though there’s been an increase in the past 10 years, at the current rate it would take 100 years to reach that goal,” she says. MPA Goals While all MPAs are designed to limit human activity, there are different types of marine protected areas with different goals. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a system that relies on a site’s five functional characteristics: conservation focus , level of protection , permanence of protection, constancy of protection, and ecological scale of protection.

A site’s conservation focus and its level of protection are the most important characteristics. A conservation focus asks what an MPA was created to protect. It could be the water’s natural heritage —such as its biodiversity , habitat , population, or ecosystems —or its cultural heritage , which reflects the country’s maritime history and connections to the sea. Or it might have been created for sustainable production, where the focus is on managing the removal of living resources such as plants, fish, or shellfish . A level of protection determines what kinds of activities are prohibited , restricted , or allowed in a marine protected area. Here are the varying levels of protection MPAs provide, according to NOAA’s framework:

• Uniform multiple-use MPAs allow activities, including fishing or taking other living resources from the water, across the entire protected area.
• Zoned multiple-use MPAs allow people to take resources but limits where or when they can do so to lessen the impact on the area.
• Zoned multiple-use MPAs with no-take zones are MPAs that allow many activities but have at least one zone where people are prohibited from taking any marine resources .
• No-take MPAs or zones restrict people from taking any natural or cultural resources.

Types of MPAs There are different types of marine protected areas. They may differ in their conservation focus and level of protection. Marine reserves are usually no-take MPAs, and therefore prohibit any taking of resources . Activities that aren’t allowed include fishing and mining . Other activities, such as swimming and boating, are often permitted. Many reserves have a strong education or research focus. Natural Bridges State Marine Reserve in California is one example. Located on the edge of the city of Santa Cruz, it covers 1.5 square kilometers (0.58 miles). Natural Bridges was created to protect surfgrass and sandy beach, which provide habitat for a variety of species. Fishing, drilling , and mining are not allowed at the MPA. Recreational activities like kayaking and swimming are allowed.

Marine sanctuaries have special conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, cultural, archaeological, scientific, educational, or aesthetic qualities. Most are multiple-use areas but may be zoned with no-take areas. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is one of 13 U.S. sanctuaries. Located on the southern tip of Florida, it holds a wealth of natural resources, including the largest living coral reef in North America. The marine sanctuary is vast, covering 9,500 square kilometers (3,667 square miles). The rich variety of habitats includes seagrass beds and mangrove swamps . Thousands of species live in the Keys, sponges, jellies, anemones, mussels, oysters, and coral among them.

The sanctuary also holds cultural resources that offer a glimpse of the area’s maritime history. Since the European arrival to Florida in the 1500s, many ships have sunk in the waters off Florida. Artifacts from these shipwrecks rest in the sanctuary. With its natural and cultural resources, it’s not surprising the Florida Keys draws visitors: more than 4 million people each year. Commercial fishing is vital to the economy of the Keys, where more than 20 million pounds of seafood are caught annually, according to NOAA. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is a multiple-use MPA, with commercial, sport, and recreational fishing allowed in some zones. In other zones, only scientific research is allowed. Most of the park encourages a wide variety of recreational activities. National parks are large areas preserved in their natural state as public property. They are designed to protect the natural and cultural objects and wildlife within the park. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, which covers more than 13,200 square kilometers (5,100 square miles), includes tidewater glaciers , snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords , and freshwater rivers and lakes. The conservation focus is on the arctic ecosystem. Commercial and recreational fishing are allowed but limited. Sport fishermen seek Pacific halibut and different species of salmon , such as sockeye, king, and coho, in Glacier Bay. Recreational activities such as kayaking, rafting, and boat tours are allowed.

Wildlife refuges conserve, protect, and enhance fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of people. Breton National Wildlife Refuge , in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, covers about 52 square kilometers (20 square miles) and is only accessible by boat. The focus of protection is its ecosystem . One goal is to provide a haven for nearly two dozen species of birds, from nesting and wading seabirds to waterfowl and wintering shorebirds. They include endangered species like the piping plover, the least tern, and the brown pelican. The refuge suffered serious damage when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, and much of the land eroded . Breton National Wildlife Refuge allows recreational fishing, but commercial fishing is prohibited . Wildlife viewing is a popular recreational activity, but because so much land was lost during Katrina, camping is no longer permitted. Stakeholders Stakeholders are individuals, communities, or organizations with an interest in the marine protected area. As the above examples show, different types of MPAs provide different opportunities for stakeholders . The general public uses MPAs for recreation such as fishing, kayaking, sailing, boat tours, snorkeling, or wildlife viewing. There are usually few regulations on recreational activities. Commercial fishermen rely on the waters and the marine life in them for their livelihood. Most MPAs try to strike a balance between protecting resources and allowing for the sustainable extraction of those resources . As a result, there are very few no-take areas that prohibit all extraction . Many MPAs, however, do limit commercial fishing by where or when it can be done. Different seafood , such as salmon or lobster, have different seasons when it is safe and legal to harvest them. Scientists and researchers use marine protected areas to study marine life and habitats . MPAs are "living laboratories" for scientists and researchers, where they can monitor and measure the health of species, ecosystems , and human impact. As Toropova of the IUCN says, “Everything we depend on in life comes from the ocean .”

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument Papahanaumokuakea, the area surrounding the remote and uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, is the largest marine protected area (MPA) in the United States. The MPA is 362,072 square kilometers (139,797 square miles). Like most MPAs, it is multiple-use. The area's tuna and lobster fisheries remain open to seasonal use, while the remote islands provide protected areas for endangered species like the Hawaiian monk seal.

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January 9, 2024

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• Rowan Trebilco 2 , 3 ,
• Narissa Bax 1 , 2 , 5 ,
• Madeleine J. Brasier 1 ,
• Emma L. Cavan 6 ,
• Graham Edgar 1 ,
• Heather L. Hunt 7 ,
• Jan Jansen 1 ,
• Russ Jones 8 ,
• Mary-Anne Lea 1 , 2 ,
• Reuben Makomere 9 ,
• Chris Mull 10 ,
• Jayson M. Semmens 1 ,
• Janette Shaw 1 , 2 ,
• Dugald Tinch 11 ,
• Tatiana J. van Steveninck 3 , 12 &
• Cayne Layton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3390-6437 1 , 2  

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Marine ecosystems and their associated biodiversity sustain life on Earth and hold intrinsic value. Critical marine ecosystem services include maintenance of global oxygen and carbon cycles, production of food and energy, and sustenance of human wellbeing. However marine ecosystems are swiftly being degraded due to the unsustainable use of marine environments and a rapidly changing climate. The fundamental challenge for the future is therefore to safeguard marine ecosystem biodiversity, function, and adaptive capacity whilst continuing to provide vital resources for the global population. Here, we use foresighting/hindcasting to consider two plausible futures towards 2030: a business-as-usual trajectory (i.e. continuation of current trends), and a more sustainable but technically achievable future in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We identify key drivers that differentiate these alternative futures and use these to develop an action pathway towards the desirable, more sustainable future. Key to achieving the more sustainable future will be establishing integrative (i.e. across jurisdictions and sectors), adaptive management that supports equitable and sustainable stewardship of marine environments. Conserving marine ecosystems will require recalibrating our social, financial, and industrial relationships with the marine environment. While a sustainable future requires long-term planning and commitment beyond 2030, immediate action is needed to avoid tipping points and avert trajectories of ecosystem decline. By acting now to optimise management and protection of marine ecosystems, building upon existing technologies, and conserving the remaining biodiversity, we can create the best opportunity for a sustainable future in 2030 and beyond.

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Introduction

The diversity of life in the oceans, marine biodiversity, is declining globally at an alarming rate (Lotze et al. 2019 ; Worm et al. 2006 ), driven by multiple interacting anthropogenic stressors, which are degrading marine ecosystem function, shifting species’ distributions, and initiating the formation of novel ecosystems with unknown characteristics and services (e.g. Harborne and Mumby 2011 ; Pecl et al. 2017 ). These losses threaten the wellbeing and survival of much (arguably all) of humankind that fundamentally depends on the many services provided by marine biodiversity and ecosystems, including climate regulation, coastal protection, food and medicinal products, recreational activities, and livelihoods (Peterson and Lubchenco 1997 ; Selig et al. 2018 ). These ecosystems also possess unique, often intangible, inherent values making them crucial to the health and wellbeing of peoples around the world. As such, safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystem function into the future is a task of critical importance. The challenge is to conserve existing biodiversity, while increasing the capacity to forecast ecological trajectories and future ecosystem states to inform sustainable management long-term (Cheung 2019 ). Ecological forecasts are needed for developing adaptation strategies to guide ecosystems towards states that support a high diversity of functions and species. Stemming the rate of biodiversity loss at all levels – including genetic, taxonomic, community, ecosystem, and functional diversity – will leave marine species and ecosystems with a wider breadth of adaptive pathways, thus increasing the likelihood of resilience, rather than extinction, in future seas.

Marine ecosystems and biodiversity have undergone rapid and profound changes in the Anthropocene (e.g. Estes et al. 2011 ; Jackson 2001 ; Pimiento et al. 2020 ). Marine and coastal ecosystem changes resulting from human activity have steeply accelerated in the last ~ 150 years (Bindoff et al. 2019 ; Halpern et al. 2019 ). Identifying pre-industrial environmental ‘baselines’ to enable the quantification of ecological changes is challenging and often unfeasible, not only because ecosystems continuously change in response to environmental phenomena, but also since in many cases anthropogenic pressures began before Western scientific monitoring commenced (Jackson 1997 ; Jennings and Blanchard 2004 ; Roberts 2007 ). An emerging “mass extinction” event is thought to be underway in the oceans (Lotze et al. 2019 ; Payne et al. 2016 ) caused by the combined (and sometimes synergistic) effects of overfishing (Blanchard et al. 2017 ; FAO 2018 ), habitat degradation and loss (IPBES 2019 ), pollution, eutrophication, oxygen depletion, introduced pests, and ocean warming (Breitburg et al. 2018 ; Doney 2010 ). These cumulative stressors have, in some cases, led to dramatic and difficult-to-reverse shifts in ecosystem state – or “ecosystem collapses” (e.g. Beaugrand et al. 2015 ; Biggs et al. 2018 ; Möllmann and Diekmann 2012 ). Indeed, historical ecosystem states may have increasingly limited relevance in the context of substantial and ongoing impacts, particularly as a result of climate change. Despite these pervasive impacts and trajectories of ecosystem degradation, there is still reason for hope, as marine biodiversity and ecosystems continue to support the services upon which societies rely and the recovery of many degraded marine ecosystems is considered achievable by 2050, if there is sufficient will and targeted effort (Duarte et al. 2020 ).

A common approach to conservation in the marine realm is the implementation of ‘Marine Protected Areas’ (MPAs) that secure ecosystems by separating them from human use and/or limiting extractive/destructive processes. This approach is upheld in United Nations processes including the Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While MPAs are, and will continue to be, a fundamental and effective conservation tool when properly implemented and managed (see Edgar et al. 2014 ; Gownaris et al. 2019 ), human population growth, and activities contributing to unsustainable lifestyles, continue to threaten marine ecosystems beyond the boundaries of MPAs (Cafaro 2021 ; Halpern et al. 2019 ). Safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystems into the future will therefore require more holistic and inclusive approaches. It is not possible to secure all (or even the majority) of the marine estate as MPAs, nor is it desirable in contexts where stewardship is high and people are able to live in balance with ecosystems (Cinner et al. 2016 ; Gilchrist et al. 2020 ; Stewart et al. 2020 ). Indeed, some evidence suggests that the greatest conservation outcomes arise where communities are most intimately connected to their local ecosystems and the associated decision-making processes (e.g. Nikitine et al. 2018 ; Wells and White 1995 ). It is therefore imperative that we consider how to improve and optimise conservation outcomes in ‘non-protected’ areas. This will require a fundamental recalibration of the way individuals, communities, industries, and financial markets perceive and interact with the marine environment. Setting ambitious goals for marine conservation is fundamental (Díaz et al. 2020 ), but importantly, failure to achieve previous globally agreed biodiversity conservation targets (Díaz et al. 2019 ; UN 2020 ) highlights the need to innovate our approach to achieving conservation goals.

Here, we use a forecasting/hindcasting approach to consider two plausible futures for 2030. These two futures encompass 1) a business-as-usual future that results from a continuation of current trajectories, and 2) a more sustainable, aspirational, but technically achievable future in line with progress towards achieving the UN SDGs. The coming decade will be defined by great uncertainty and complexity, with major transformations needed to move towards a sustainable future (Sachs et al. 2019 ). Development and communication of a ‘mobilising narrative’ that envisions a positive yet possible future is a first step towards outlining concrete actions to anticipate and constructively respond to future challenges (Nash et al. 2021a , this issue). We acknowledge that the current COVID-19 pandemic is causing major changes to economies and socio-ecological systems at local, national and global scales. The business-as-usual scenario we describe here is based on evidence from the recent past prior to the pandemic, and assumes a general return to this trajectory over the next few years. We note however, that current disruptions to the global ocean, environment, and society because of COVID-19 may present a platform for change and an opportunity to ‘reset’ trajectories in the coming decade (Sandbrook et al. 2020 ). The sustainable future presented here is one option for such a shift. Our goal is to highlight potential opportunities associated with moving towards one version of a more-sustainable future, rather than providing an exhaustive exploration of every option.

The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) is a timely opportunity to align global focus on arresting and reversing the degradation of marine environments, and to ensure ocean science supports improvements towards the sustainable and equitable development of the world’s oceans (Pendleton et al. 2020 ). In considering our two plausible futures for 2030, we identify key drivers of change that differentiate these futures, and use these as a basis for identifying concrete actions that align with achieving the more sustainable future. We identify choices and actions across various scales (e.g. local, regional, national, international) to arrive at a more desirable future for the oceans in the context of our rapidly changing climate. The aspirational, more sustainable, scenario is intended to highlight a vision of what is achievable if society “chooses” to work collaboratively towards a future more closely aligned with achieving the UN SDGs (Nash et al. 2021a , this issue, for additional context).

This paper is part of the larger 'Future Seas' project, the aim of which was to leverage interdisciplinary knowledge to address the grand challenges for the oceans in the coming decade. As part of Future Seas, the approach for addressing these grand challenges was developed by a core team (Nash et al. 2021a ) and discussed, tested and refined through a series of workshops with the broader group of Future Seas participants. Future Seas participants were assembled into author teams, and each team addressed a separate grand challenge following the same methods, which are described in detail by Nash et al. ( 2021a ) and summarised here.

The overarching goal of this paper was to describe a technically feasible pathway towards 2030 through which we could improve the status of marine ecosystems and biodiversity globally (or at least, stem their loss). In this process, subgoals included 1) identifying 4–6 key drivers of change in marine ecosystems and biodiversity; 2) describing the likely business-as-usual future for 2030 based on current trends in these drivers; 3) describing a more sustainable but achievable future state of the drivers and human-marine ecosystem interactions; 4) identifying specific actions that could feasibly shift us from the business-as-usual trajectory towards the more sustainable future we described; 5) identifying timeframes, key actors and scale for actions in the pathway.

Our approach for developing these alternative futures and pathway was to apply established foresighting and hindcasting techniques that are used in futures analysis and scenario development in the socio-ecological literature (Nash et al. 2021a ; Planque et al. 2019 ; Rintoul et al. 2018 ) (also see Fig.  1 for an overview). The process involved collaboration among our interdisciplinary co-author team for co-constructed scenario development during a series of workshops and meetings. Disciplines represented by our team include law, governance, management, fisheries, and economics, along with Indigenous leadership, ecologists and other biophysical scientists. Given our location, most authors are Australian (12), but authors also come from UK (3), Canada (2), Haida Nation (Canada, 1), New Zealand (1), Italy (1), Germany (1), The Netherlands (1) and Kenya (1). The team also consulted with an international group of Traditional Owners and Indigenous knowledge holders, and community representatives (see Fischer et al. 2021 ; Mustonen et al. 2021 , both this issue).

An overview of the methods followed to develop alternative scenarios of 2030 for marine ecosystem and biodiversity conservation (* from Nash et al. 2021a , this issue)

Prior to developing future scenarios, we considered the underlying assumptions articulated in Nash et al. ( 2021a ) as being broadly applicable across a wide range of global challenges for marine systems and confirmed their relevance to developing the two plausible futures for marine biodiversity and conservation by 2030. Assumptions included i) general ocean resource use and knowledge production continue, ii) no new major international agreements are ratified (however, existing discussions will continue), iii) the globe is locked into some degree of climate change over the coming decade, iv) human populations will continue to increase and v) no new large-scale human conflicts emerge. Moreover, we assumed that vi) demand for seafood will continue to rise and that vii) food insecurity, in terms of availability, access, utilisation and stability, will remain a challenge for some regions and people (see Farmery et al. 2021 , this issue), and that viii) climate-driven redistribution of species in the ocean will continue as per projected trends (see Melbourne-Thomas et al. 2021 , this issue).

To identify broad drivers of change relevant to the state of marine ecosystem and biodiversity, we first brainstormed all drivers affecting marine ecosystems, with participants writing individual drivers on post-it notes. In doing so, we aimed to identify Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) drivers to ensure consideration of different driver types (Nash et al. 2021a ). We then grouped these individual drivers into broader, umbrella drivers. For example, fishing-related drivers, deep-sea mining, shipping, marine renewable energy were all eventually grouped together under the sectoral stewardship umbrella driver. These umbrella drivers are intended to represent broad mechanisms, or ‘levers’, that could feasibly be influenced or modified to improve conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems over the course of the next 10 years (2021–2030) (see Nash et al. 2021 for full details of methods). We then mapped umbrella drivers on two axes: 1) degree of impact on marine ecosystems and biodiversity and 2) degree of influence that society has over the driver, as we were particularly interested in umbrella drivers central to how marine biodiversity could play out in the future (high impact) and that society had the potential to influence (high influence).

Using the umbrella drivers with both high impact and high influence, we then forecast a likely ‘business-as-usual’ 2030 future based on current trends (following Merrie et al. 2018 ), and a ‘sustainable 2030’ future, in line with pushing towards achieving the SDGs, that is achievable if conscious actions are taken to guide the drivers towards that more aspirational future. To do this, the group brainstormed and discussed a vision for the state of the drivers in 2030 based on our shared understanding of current trends and opportunities. Sub-groups of the author team then researched individual driver trends to inform the analysis and the description of the business-as-usual and sustainable futures for each driver. All authors then reviewed the narratives and assessed the feasibility of the futures described for 2030. We then hindcast the actions required to shift from the ‘business-as-usual’ trajectory towards the more ‘sustainable 2030’ future and continued using a ‘PESTLE framework’ to ensure the generation of actions from across a wide range of categories. Importantly, the premise was that the knowledge and technology to support the actions must already exist – i.e. that there is already the capability to affect the changes we recommend. The resulting actions were temporalized to collectively form an action pathway to achieve the sustainable 2030 future, whilst iterative revisions were made between the pathway and the narrative of the sustainable future, to ensure they were realistic and technically achievable, in the judgement of the author team. It is thus important to note that the development of the scenarios, actions and pathways was not linear, but rather was iterative to ensure internal consistency (Fig.  1 ). Please also refer to Supplementary Table 1 for further clarification of the methodology and the scope of the paper.

Three important considerations affected what was considered within the scope of our methodological approach. 1) We note that up to and beyond 2030, the driver with the greatest impact on global marine ecosystems and biodiversity is anthropogenic climate change (Cafaro 2021 ; IPCC 2019 ; Trisos et al. 2020 ). Consequently, cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the action with the greatest potential benefit to the state of global marine ecosystems in the long term. Given the ‘known’ pathway to address impacts associated with climate change (e.g. IPCC 2019 ), and the necessity to focus on outcomes that are attainable and actionable within the next decade, we primarily examine how to reduce other impacts on marine life (e.g. resource exploitation) and increase the resilience of marine ecosystems to adapt in the face of ongoing climate change. However, our suggested actions in no way lessen the critical importance of reducing emissions without delay nor the transformations needed to supress warming in line with the Paris Agreement (Schleussner et al. 2016 ). 2) Many of the challenges addressed by the other papers in this special issue also affect marine ecosystems and efforts to conserve them. Where there was overlap between the challenges, this affected the level of detail we considered on those aspects of our challenge on safeguarding marine life, and we refer to those papers for additional insights and solutions. For a detailed articulation of potential actions to support mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change in marine systems, please see Trebilco et al. ( 2021 , this issue) and Melbourne-Thomas et al. ( 2021 , this issue). Likewise, anticipated global trends in the demand for seafood and other products, such as energy and minerals, and the growth of activities to meet such demand will significantly impact the conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems into the future. These topics are discussed in full in Farmery et al. ( 2021 ), Bax et al. ( 2021 ) and Novaglio et al. ( 2021 ) in this issue. Increased pollution due to human activities is another key factor influencing our ability to conserve biodiversity and is extensively considered in Willis et al. ( 2021 , this issue). Societal and institutional mechanisms that influence the fate of marine biodiversity, which we consider here only briefly, are explored in more detail elsewhere in this issue, and include ocean literacy Kelly et al. ( 2021 ) and ocean governance Haas et al. ( 2021 ), in addition to Indigenous rights, access and management Fischer et al. ( 2021 ).

Lastly and most importantly, 3) we note that the scenarios we describe are just two of many possible futures, and that the experiences and worldviews of the co-authors influence decisions on which drivers and actions to focus on. As such, our vision for the future presented here is likely to differ from those developed by other author groups, and our results should be interpreted within that context. We have nevertheless tried to make our vision relevant to a global audience. The goal here was not to give a prescriptive vision for the future, but to inspire thought, discussion and action, to which others can add their own visions for a better future for marine ecosystems and biodiversity.

Drivers of marine ecosystem conservation outcomes and alternate futures for the year 2030

We identified four key umbrella drivers of marine conservation: (i) financial mechanisms, (ii) sectoral stewardship; (iii) management and governance; and, underpinning these first three drivers in many ways, (iv) social impetus for safeguarding marine ecosystems (Fig.  2 ). These drivers can negatively or positively affect conservation outcomes and thus represent potential axes of impact. Importantly, these drivers interact with each other and have feedbacks between them. Change in all four drivers is required to reach a more sustainable future. For the business-as-usual future, the drivers are assumed to progress throughout the next decade along their current trajectories, and may include both potentially positive or negative changes. Whereas for the sustainable 2030 future, the drivers evolve along aspirational but achievable trajectories. Below we describe the current state and trends of the four drivers and indicate how they may be influenced throughout the upcoming decade to shape the two alternate futures for the year 2030.

Schematic highlighting the relationship between the four key drivers of change with high potential for both impact and influence, on the fate of conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems by 2030

Financial mechanisms

Financial or economic mechanisms are powerful drivers of conservation, and routinely influence the management and conservation of marine ecosystems around the world (Innes et al. 2015 ; Rydén et al. 2020 ; Sumaila et al. 2021 ). Typically, however, global economic systems are characterised by processes that prioritise profit and exploitation of resources over the long-term conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services (e.g. Sethi et al. 2010 ). Greater emphasis on marine ecosystem health (and the benefits and services provided by those ecosystems) is needed when balancing economic returns with environmental cost.

Broadly speaking, development and application of financial mechanisms are influenced by each of our drivers, including social and sectoral demand for “green” solutions; governance incentives, disincentives and requirements for accountability and best practice; as well as changes from within the finance sector. We note that shifting to a circular economy (Stahel 2016 ) will help reduce impacts on marine life but will not be achieved within a decade. Below we highlight specific financial resources and mechanisms that can be changed to improve marine conservation.

Financial resources and tools can be used to drive positive change for marine environments and redistribute pressure on marine resources, reduce stressors, and support ecosystem restoration; however there is currently a large marine conservation funding shortfall (e.g. it has recently been estimated that an extra US$149.02 billion per year is required to achieve SDG 14, Johansen and Vestvik 2020 ). At present, the dominant mechanism for financing conservation activities is via grants from governments or philanthropic sources (Bos et al. 2015 ). These grants can be sporadic in nature and allocated on timescales too short to fully achieve optimal conservation outcomes, or for the societal benefits of the conservation activities to be felt (Bos et al. 2015 ). To better conserve marine environments, greater security of funding sources and mechanisms is required (Bos et al. 2015 ; Fujita et al. 2013 ; Johansen and Vestvik 2020 ; Tirumala and Tiwari 2020 ).

Market-based mechanisms for raising such revenue can involve incentives and disincentives; for example investment in ecosystem services such as blue carbon and fees, taxes or fines for the use (or misuse) of marine services, resources, or spaces. Other financial disincentives include biodiversity offsets or performance bonds paid as a security against harming ecosystems (Bos et al. 2015 ; Deutz et al. 2020 ). Overall however, most mechanisms are under-utilized or poorly applied. For example, some subsidies for commercial fishing support activities that are otherwise unprofitable, and waste capital (estimated at US$35 billion in 2009, Sumaila et al. 2016 ), and which could be better employed to boost sustainability and efficiencies in the sector (Schuhbauer et al. 2017 , 2020 ). Many ecosystem services remain unvalued or undervalued (e.g. nutrient cycling, biodiversity supporting fisheries productivity), and rarely do users pay for all the services they financially benefit from (Fujita et al. 2013 ; also see Haas et al. 2021 ).

Safeguarding marine environments therefore requires an urgent recalibration from within the financial sector, and an alignment with climate change mitigation commitments and sustainability goals (e.g. Schelske et al. 2020 ). Restructuring investment markets and reducing risks associated with private-sector investment in marine sustainability are critical for this (e.g. Fujita et al. 2013 ; Tirumala and Tiwari 2020 ). One mechanism developed recently is ‘blue bonds’, which enable developing countries to attract and leverage philanthropic investment to refinance national debt and fund marine conservation and sustainability projects (The World Bank Group 2020 ; TNC 2020 ). New financial mechanisms and frameworks will be required to scale up investment and ensure stable funding for marine conservation and sustainability, but must also be implemented transparently and with appropriate representation (Alexander et al. 2021 ; Tirumala and Tiwari 2020 ). This might include greater involvement of the private sector and a suite of financial mechanisms including, for example, biodiversity offsets, paying for use of ecosystem services, and blended finance (Deutz et al. 2020 ; Johansen and Vestvik 2020 ).

Sectoral stewardship

Terrestrial and marine industries are affecting and driving change in marine ecosystems. Many terrestrial agricultural, silvicultural, and manufacturing industries contribute to the input of harmful sediments, chemicals, and nutrients into marine environments, while tourism, construction and extractive industries (such as fishing, oil and gas and mining) also directly and indirectly impact species, habitats, and ecosystems (Luypaert et al. 2020 ). The scope of this driver is focused on the role that industries (including individual companies and industrial organisations) play in shaping and contributing to interactions with marine ecosystems and conservation outcomes. Sectoral decisions affecting interactions with marine ecosystems can broadly be influenced by management and governance structures, social demand for sustainable products and services, and financial market conditions, as well as by leadership from influential industry bodies and actors.

The nature and strength of sectoral stewardship is influenced by the regulatory environment for industries whose actions affect marine ecosystems. Regulation and mitigation efforts to reduce the impacts of industry interactions in the marine environment are typically reactive, with the result that interventions are often implemented too late to be effective, or need to be in place for extended periods in order to be effective (e.g. Constable et al. 2000 ). Decision making is often siloed within industries, such that cumulative effects – from other industries and drivers – are often inadequately considered in regulation (Link and Browman 2017 ; Stephenson et al. 2019 ). This is especially critical in coastal zones, where the vast majority of marine activities occur, and where terrestrial and marine activities often interact to produce significant environmental impacts (Bax et al. 2021 ; Willis et al. 2021 , both this issue). However, siloed decision-making is also of increasing concern in offshore waters, where the blue economy is expanding (Novaglio et al. 2021 ). Implementation of measures that might assist in the recovery of ecosystems can be slow and ineffective because of competing interests in these regions, and although most activities are monitored to some extent, many lack adequately designed or enforceable regulation frameworks (Cinquemani 2019 ; Hofman 2019 ). Implementation of integrated, ecosystem-based management requiring monitoring of impacts and transparent, balanced consideration of trade-offs can therefore empower sectors to make sustainable changes (Stephenson et al. 2021 ).

International, multinational, and transnational ownership structures can enable corporations to avoid governmental oversight and regulations, often at the cost of environmental integrity (Folke et al. 2019 ; Sterner et al. 2019 ). This influence can undermine the setting of effective conservation measures, particularly where those measures might have economic impacts for industries. Conversely, this also means that large transnational corporations and industries can have disproportionate power to stem declines in marine biodiversity and promote shifts towards more sustainable outcomes (Folke et al. 2019 ; Virdin et al. 2021 ). Many businesses and industries are increasingly becoming more active in addressing environmental concerns and conservation, often as a response to consumer demand (GSIA 2018 ). However, difficulty assessing claims to sustainability and concerns over “green-washing” act as a barrier to greater investment in green businesses, and curbs the growth and potential for greater positive contributions from industries to conservation outcomes (de Silva et al. 2019 ; Lewis et al. 2016 ; Walker and Wan 2012 ). Increasing transparency and accountability, e.g. with development of standard metrics for assessing environmental impacts, could therefore greatly influence the market landscape and decision-making within industries.

Management and governance

Approaches to ocean management and associated governance and legal frameworks have evolved incrementally as disparate responses to specific environmental issues (e.g. pollution from land-based sources), into increasingly integrated and strategic approaches, such as integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) (e.g. Glaeser 2019 ). Modern approaches to managing marine biodiversity now incorporate many different tools, operating at a range of scales. Conservation management frameworks can comprise top-down approaches in which policy and legislative instruments implement international conventions and agreements and meet national priorities; or bottom-up approaches including customary or Indigenous, ecosystem-based and stakeholder-based approaches to resource management. Many frameworks seek to integrate a mixture of top-down and bottom-up approaches, with varying levels of social and ecological ‘success’ (e.g. Singleton 2009 ).

Several legally-binding international conventions and agreements focus on reducing anthropogenic impacts on the marine environment (see Table 1 ). They vary in many ways including in their compliance mechanisms, state party membership and the political dynamics that accompany their implementation. This regime is extremely complex, comprising autonomous, non-hierarchical and partially-overlapping institutions, agreements, and authorities (Alter and Raustiala 2018 ); and despite the number of legal instruments and institutions, marine biodiversity and ecosystem health have continued to decline (UN 2020 ). The international regime for marine environmental governance is facing a host of new challenges, including physical changes such as ocean acidification and warming, and challenges to the fitness and capacity of the governance regime itself. For example, resource distributions and global priorities are increasingly contested, and global and regional geo-political dynamics are changing, exacerbating the complexity of marine environmental governance (Spalding and de Ycaza 2020 ). It is also becoming more difficult for current international governance regimes to achieve an effective balance between implementing strong, clear and enforceable obligations on the one hand, and enhancing the kind of broad, global participation that will be required to address global marine environmental problems. Aspirational targets such as the Aichi Targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations SDGs, may play an important role in guiding future priority setting and building momentum for global marine conservation (e.g. Spalding and de Ycaza 2020 ). However, robust, inter-governance regime coordination mechanisms and strong, effective action at national and regional levels will be crucial to improving the success of marine conservation and governance in the future (e.g. Grip 2017 ).

Beyond consideration of fishing effects on some biodiversity components in high seas areas (e.g. conservation measures implemented through Regional Fisheries Management Organisations), there remain significant gaps in legal and management arrangements for biodiversity conservation in these regions. Negotiations are currently underway with a focus on developing an international legally binding treaty on marine Biodiversity in areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (the BBNJ Treaty) (Ban et al. 2014 ; Humphries and Harden-Davies 2020 ). Once finalised, this will go some way to filling such governance gaps. Biodiversity conservation frameworks and action plans have also been established at regional scales, including under the UNEP Regional Seas Programme, obliging state parties to either collectively or individually set up or enhance measures to protect fragile ecosystems (e.g. in the Southern Ocean and Western Indian Ocean regions, see Oral 2015 ).

Most developed and developing countries have national and regional governance frameworks for marine conservation and sustainability; however, their implementation varies widely. This variation can be attributed to several factors including differences in policy priorities, diverse approaches to ocean management, and capacity challenges that hinder effective governance (see Islam and Shamsuddoha 2018 ). Limitations in capacity and capability have resulted in uneven outcomes for marine species and ecosystems, and can undermine conservation or management efforts where species and ecosystems are shared across jurisdictions. It can also limit the ability of countries to effectively take part in negotiations, resulting in geographic disparity in overall achievement of priorities for conservation of the marine environment (Halvorssen 2019 ). Marine conservation may also be given a relatively low priority when compared to other development priorities. For example, recent research demonstrates that a majority of countries prioritise socio-economic SDGs over the marine environment-based SDG 14 and that efforts to achieve SDG 14 are allocated less funding than any other SGD priority (Custer et al. 2018 ; Johansen and Vestvik 2020 ).

Although many frameworks across numerous countries aspire to incorporate integrated approaches to ocean management (such as marine spatial planning, ICZM and ecosystem approaches), in most cases management frameworks still only address single sector activities (e.g. fishing, energy extraction, shipping). While this simplifies priority setting and actions to achieve those priorities, a lack of integration can result in conflicting priorities between sectors and uneven access to ocean resources, including cultural heritage (Jones et al. 2016 ). This can lead to patchy outcomes for the conservation of species, communities and ecosystems, particularly where they are affected by cumulative impacts from multiple sectors and across multiple jurisdictions. Opportunities for more sustainable governance exist (Haas et al. 2021 ; Rudolph et al. 2020 ) and ultimately, this driver can be influenced by social pressure, including the expectation that marine spaces and biodiversity will be sustainably managed, sectoral support for ecosystem-based management, and through securing sufficient funding to implement and sustain integrated management.

Social impetus for marine ecosystem conservation

Social impetus for conservation has the potential to generate tremendous power for change. However, industrialisation and globalisation have resulted in a general loss of connection between people and environments and ecosystems (see also Kelly et al. 2021 , this issue). Communities across the world depend directly and indirectly on marine ecosystems (see also Nash et al. 2021b , this issue); however, for many people conservation of marine biodiversity is a luxury, for example when the only options for accessing protein or generating a livelihood are based on unsustainable activities (Adams et al 2004 ; Cinner et al 2014 ; Glaser et al 2018 ). Addressing inequality, poverty and social justice is therefore critical for influencing social impetus for marine conservation (see also Alexander et al 2021 , this issue).

In many cases, individuals are unaware of the impact their everyday actions have on the health and function of marine environments and the ecosystem services they provide (Bleys et al. 2017 ). However, greater interpersonal connectivity and access to knowledge seems to be increasing awareness of some impacts and issues facing the marine environment (Boulianne et al. 2020 ). Importantly, social connection – the shared emotional relationships between individuals or cohorts (Clark et al. 2017 ; Seppala et al. 2013 ) – centred on environmental sustainability is needed for awareness of marine environmental issues to translate to social impetus for sustained conservation action on conservation issues. Social connection can also help promote a shared identity and set of norms and values around concepts such as ‘ecological sustainability’ (e.g. such as those related to jobs and money). Further, a lack of connection and trust can hamper the social understanding and accurate communication of these often-complex issues (Ives et al. 2017 ).

Currently, many of the environmental issues that attract considerable public and media attention and action (such as oil spills and reduction in single-use plastics, Eddy 2019 ; Edgar et al. 2003 ) tend to be singular, easily observed problems for which solutions can be simply articulated (also see Kelly et al. 2021 , this issue), rather than the far more damaging, complex and cumulative impacts that marine ecosystems face. Advancing ocean literacy and empowering people to make informed choices that support marine conservation (e.g. through access to information) are particularly important for influencing social impetus (Kelly et al. 2021 ; Nash et al. 2021b , this issue). Where conservation efforts result in reduced delivery of benefits, substantial structural resistance to those efforts can occur (Alexander et al. 2021 this issue). Social impetus for conservation is more likely to be strong where conservation outcomes can be linked to proximal economic benefits and societal survival (Kauder et al. 2018 ). However, linking conservation goals and strategies with social dependencies on the services marine ecosystems provide can be a powerful mechanism for creating collective action (Barnaud et al. 2018 ).

Plausible Futures for 2030

Business-as-usual 2030 – ‘too little, too late is tragically common’.

Along the business-as-usual trajectory towards 2030, there will certainly be progress made relative to the beginning of the decade, with increased implementation of conservation measures (e.g. improved design and establishment of MPAs, improved monitoring through use of technology), improved management and regulatory frameworks with associated reductions in some pressures and steady increases in habitat restoration (see below). However, much of the progress in conservation outcomes is geographically biased and overall the trajectory for marine ecosystem health continues on a decline (grey line, Fig.  3 ). Positive progress, and the actions that facilitated them, seem likely to be too sporadic and reactive to ensure the widespread improvements needed in many regions; this is driven largely by unequal availability (and thus inequality) of financial resources and expertise devoted to improving conservation outcomes. Decision-making and drivers of conservation outcomes and marine ecosystem health are still mostly siloed and isolated from one another, leading to insufficient collaboration and consideration of cumulative impacts. Ultimately, it seems that progress and concordant conservation benefits will be best summarised as ‘too little, too late,’ and continue to be obstructed by commercialisation of exploitation. Under this scenario, by 2030:

Implementation of integrated, marine spatial planning has increased, but is undertaken in approximately only 30% of EEZ’s globally (IOC-UNESCO 2017 , 2018 )

Social impetus for safeguarding and recovering marine ecosystems has increased sporadically (e.g. Agardy 2005 ; Hawkins et al. 2016 ; Kelly et al. 2018 ; Wynveen et al. 2014 )

Management of the marine estate remains predominantly siloed, reactive, and often lacks strategic conservation goals (e.g. Alvarez-Romero et al. 2018 )

Lobbying continues to impede the development and/or implementation of new financial or regulatory mechanisms to mitigate impacts on marine ecosystems (e.g. Etzion 2020 ; Folke et al. 2019 )

Increased demand for sustainable products and services drives sporadic improvements in some industries/companies, but this has yet to trigger a broader shift in practices that improve or minimise harm to marine environments (e.g. Lim 2017 )

Geographic bias in marine ecosystem research, management, and conservation continues (e.g. Alvarez-Romero et al. 2018 ; Di Marco et al. 2017 )

Negotiations for a new UN treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions (BBNJ) have proceeded very slowly (noting the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the scheduling of conferences of the parties and intersessional activities) and seem increasingly unlikely to result in strong, legally binding conservation obligations (Tiller et al. 2019 ), even as extractive industries continue expanding in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The trajectories of marine biodiversity change we envisage under a business-as-usual scenario (grey line) and under our more sustainable but technically achievable scenario (blue line). The y-axis represents marine biodiversity and the x-axis represents time. Figure format inspired by a graphic by A Islaam, IIASA

Sustainable 2030—‘building momentum for conservation success’

In the sustainable 2030 scenario, while there still remains considerable room for improvement, the overall trajectory of ecosystem decline present at the beginning of the decade has been arrested (blue line, Fig.  3 ), with increasing momentum and a rapidly growing number of success stories resulting in clear reversal in some regions and ecosystems (Abelson et al. 2016 ). Pressures on many marine environments have declined due to more collaborative and proactive regulation, aided by increased action to address the inequality of resources available to support regulation and management. Indeed, well-resourced, cross-disciplinary integrated management emerges as a cornerstone of the positive conservation outcomes that are occurring, and which have taken place at all scales, from local to international. Under this scenario, by 2030:

Integrated, ecosystem-based management of marine ecosystems has been widely implemented (e.g. Delacámara et al. 2020 ; Link and Browman 2017 ; Stephenson et al. 2021 ; Stephenson et al. 2019 )

There is increased social impetus and empowerment for the safeguarding of marine ecosystems (e.g. Hawkins et al. 2016 ; Kelly et al. 2018 )

Community-members and decision-makers are better informed about the importance of marine ecosystems and positive practical actions they can take (e.g. Artelle et al. 2018 ; Kaplan-Hallam and Bennett 2017 )

Growing interdisciplinary collaborations and cross-sectorial regulations reduce negative impacts on marine ecosystems and promote a shift towards a more circular economy (e.g. Stahel 2016 ; Kirchherr et al. 2017 )

Greater emphasis on environmental impacts in triple-bottom-line accounting, in conjunction with financial mechanisms, to support and rebuild marine ecosystems (e.g. Bos et al. 2015 ; Dichmont et al. 2020 )

Capacity-building in under-resourced communities decreases regional inequalities in development and implementation of integrated spatial management (Alvarez-Romero et al. 2018 ; IOC-UNESCO 2017 )

Improved ecological monitoring and forecasting, and the transfer of such information, both of which enable more proactive, flexible, and adaptive management (e.g. Pendleton et al. 2020 )

Improved monitoring, evaluation and adaptation of management strategies and plans (Ehler 2014 ; IOC-UNESCO 2017 )

Negotiations for a new UN BBNJ treaty have proceeded slowly (noting the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the scheduling of conferences of the parties and intersessional activities) but seem increasingly likely to result in legally binding conservation obligations, and important States have indicated that they intend to ratify the treaty.

Pathway to achieving a sustainable future

We identified a series of actions, each associated with one or more of our drivers, that together could form a pathway for achieving a more sustainable 2030 future for marine biodiversity and ecosystems (Tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ). These actions are grouped in four categories, which correspond with overarching goals for our pathway (listed below). Within each category we identify when actions commence on the spectrum from short-term (2021–2025), medium term (2025–2030) and long-term (2030 and beyond). We also identify who, amongst governments, industry and research institutions, might need to undertake those actions, as well as describing the scales (local, regional, global) that are applicable for each action. For each action we also specify the driver (or in some cases two drivers) which that action addresses.

The four categories/overarching goals for our sets of actions within the pathway are:

To improve capacity for flexible and adaptive biodiversity and ecosystem-based management in the marine environment (Table 2 ; see also Haas et al. 2021 , this issue). The actions in this category mostly address the management & governance driver described above.

To make access to data and expertise more equitable (Table 3 ). This includes financial mechanisms (e.g. increased funding, incentives) to make data more accessible as well as capacity building in regions with fewer resources to research and implement adaptive management. Actions in this category collectively address all four of our drivers.

To foster social empowerment and connection with conservation of the marine environment through improved ocean literacy (Table 4 ; see also Kelly et al. 2021 , this issue). These actions include formal and informal education, citizen science, and mechanisms for increasing accessibility of information to the public about a) status of marine ecosystems, and b) progress in safeguarding marine ecosystems. These actions together address our social impetus driver.

To implement market and financial mechanisms that support marine conservation (Table 5 ). This set of actions consider consumer choice and transparency in supply chains (see also Farmery et al. 2021 , this issue), as well as financial incentives and disincentives for industry (see Novaglio et al. 2021 , this issue), and addresses all four of our drivers, but most specifically the sectoral stewardship and financial mechanisms drivers.

Relationships between the drivers and our overarching goals towards the more sustainable future are illustrated in Fig.  4 . Importantly, successful examples of the implementation of many of the actions we describe already exist – which highlights that this pathway is achievable with sufficient political and socioeconomic will. We describe some examples of these ‘bright spots’ in Table 6 , pertaining to a series of different habitat or biodiversity components, and summarise who undertook specific actions and at what scale, as well as the factors that enabled specific actions, to realise these examples of success.

Relationships between the umbrella drivers of marine ecosystem change on the left, and our overarching goals for a more sustainable 2030 on the right. Filaments between the nodes represent the actions presented in Tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , coloured according to the goal to which they primarily contribute

In this paper we have developed and outlined a technically achievable pathway to a future for marine ecosystems and biodiversity where the trajectory of ecosystem decline present at the beginning of the decade has been stemmed, and examples of conservation success, e.g. ‘bright spots’ are rapidly growing in size and number. In developing the set of actions described in Tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 we endeavoured to generate a condensed list of key actions over the 2021–2030 timeframe that could form a feasible pathway towards the more sustainable future we have described for marine ecosystems globally, considering the four key drivers of change identified. Of course, in reality, there is a vast amount to be done to address the complex challenge of safeguarding marine life, and a range of factors that might influence the effectiveness and ultimate success of these actions. In the following sections we discuss five factors that we consider to be particularly important in determining capacity for action to address the drivers in a way that sets us on the pathway to a more sustainable future. These factors are: (1) connection to marine ecosystems and behavioural change; (2) empowering local communities, Indigenous management and partnerships; (3) access to accurate, up-to-date information; (4) overcoming barriers to integrated, ecosystem-based management; and (5) shifting towards a more equitable, circular economy. We acknowledge that there is a significant (and continually developing) body of literature around all five of these topics, and so in the following sections we attempt to distil the key ways in which they might influence capacity for the actions identified in our results, and hence affect the likelihood of achieving a more sustainable future for marine biodiversity. We note that addressing these factors won’t fix marine biodiversity conservation, however they can contribute to shifting our drivers within this decade, and then in the longer term (beyond 2030) these drivers will be positioned to improve marine conservation.

Connection to marine ecosystems and behavioural change

It is not possible for all 7.8 billion people on Earth to feel deeply connected with marine ecosystems. However, actions to increase individuals’ connection with marine spaces and nature in general is likely to increase pro-environmental behaviour and attitudes, with the added benefit of improving wellbeing (Evans et al. 2018a ; Kelly et al. 2021 ; Nash et al. 2021b ; Rosa and Collado 2019 ; White et al. 2019 ). The drivers for improving human connectedness to marine environments are outlined in Kelly et al. ( 2021 , this issue) and include education, cultural connections, technological developments and knowledge exchange and science-policy interconnections. Those authors identify five key challenges to improving ocean literacy including the need to i) expand educational programs beyond those that are youth-focused to include all components of society; ii) expand programs to local contexts and cultures to improve ocean literacy across regions, languages and cultures; iii) expand the focus on single issues and guide holistic understanding of issues affecting the ocean and sustainable approaches to marine resource use and management; iv) maximise the utility of technology in achieving ocean literacy; and v) adopt more inclusive approaches to decision making. Kelly et al. ( 2021 ) develop an ocean literacy toolkit and provide a practical pathway for improving societal connections to the marine environment, and in doing so support improved societal impetus for conservation actions.

Changing the way individuals and society consider marine ecosystems can also benefit from using diverse means of communication to reach different people in different contexts. Art, storytelling, and humour can all allow people to diverge from their normal thought processes, and to connect with information and marine environments in a different way (e.g. Curtis et al. 2012 ; Dahlstrom 2014 ; Dahlstrom and Scheufele 2018 ; Lenda et al. 2020 ; Paterson et al. 2020 ). Games can also be used to develop mechanistic understanding of how cumulative human actions and policies impact marine ecosystems (e.g. https://www.mspchallenge.info/ ) , and how trade-offs in their management might affect enjoyment of marine spaces.

Leveraging behavioural science is also increasingly recognised as key to support conservation outcomes and sustainable choices and actions by consumers and communities (Bennett et al. 2017 ). For example, Cinner ( 2018 ) describes how, because people generally prefer to maintain the status quo, setting default options so that people need to “opt out” rather than “opt in” to sustainable options can be an effective strategy. Moreover, if people perceive environmental problems as being beyond the power of individuals to effect change, then directly facilitating sustainable choices (e.g. opt-out vs. opt-in to sustainable options), can boost the feeling of making a difference and so propel further action.

Empowering local communities, Indigenous management and partnerships

The magnitude of the challenges facing the health and management of marine ecosystems requires innovative solutions that are capable of being implemented across all geospatial scales. Adopting a ‘bottom-up’, locally-driven approach would not only empower greater connection of local communities to their marine environments (as discussed above) but could also increase impetus for action at broader scales. However, not all communities that depend on marine ecosystems do so sustainably (e.g. Cinner et al. 2016 ; Dambacher et al. 2007 ; Glaser et al. 2018 ), and addressing poverty and social well-being are critical elements for achieving sustainable resource use and conservation (i.e. achieving SDG 14 depends also on achieving other SDGs) (Chaigneau et al. 2019 ; Coulthard et al. 2011 ; Nash et al. 2020 ). Resourcing may also be more limited at local scales and local communities are limited in the extent to which they can (independently, at least) mitigate local impacts from global challenges such as climate change. Given the variability in the capacity of local communities to safeguard marine ecosystems, and the global scale of pressures facing them, it is important to both strengthen local communities’ power to protect their local environments and also support them more effectively through integrated regional management structures. In particular, the diversity of the local communities needs to be represented in positions of responsibility in local and regional ecosystem management, monitoring and research to ensure whole-of-community support for the conservation goals and processes. If well supported, diverse decision-making teams have greater capacity to generate and explore innovative approaches to challenges and show greater thoroughness of decision-making processes and accuracy of assessments (Cheruvelil et al. 2014 ; Hong and Page 2004 ; Phillips et al. 2014 ), which are fundamental for improving marine ecosystem management.

The need to empower Indigenous Peoples to manage their cultural marine spaces is especially important. Indigenous Peoples have suffered from loss of territory and resources due to both the depletion of their environments by Western/global pressures and, with a few exceptions (e.g. Gwaii Haanas, and S G aan K inghas-Bowie Seamount, both Canada), the actions of the West to conserve these now dwindling resources/environments (e.g. access to cultural fishing waters restricted due to marine reserves) (Tauli-Corpuz et al. 2020 ). Yet many Indigenous Peoples still have the experience and knowledge required to sustainably manage these ecosystems (see Reid et al. 2020 and the case study below). Recognition of this, along with opportunities and support (where necessary) for Indigenous Peoples to develop and formalize their own marine ecosystem management plans and objectives (Fischer et al. 2021 ; Mustonen et al. 2021 , both this issue), is likely to result in improved marine ecosystem health at the same time as advancing equity for Indigenous Peoples (e.g. Alexander et al. 2021 ; Artelle et al. 2019 ; Ban and Frid 2018 ; Rist et al. 2019 ).

Local and Indigenous knowledge is currently under-recognised in ecosystem management activities and frameworks (Jones et al. 2020b ; Ogar et al. 2020 ; Reid et al. 2020 ). Indigenous ecological knowledge is a complex system of intergenerational, experiential observations, beliefs, practices and values that has evolved as a response to interactions between culture and environment (e.g. Alexander et al. 2019 ; Jackson et al. 2017 ; Yunupingu and Muller 2009 ). The rich understanding Indigenous People have for their local environment is inseparable from their cultural values and practices (Frainer et al. 2020 ), and in many cases comprises experience and knowledge for adapting practices to large environmental change. Yet, even where Western ecosystem management frameworks try to draw on Indigenous knowledge, they often seek to separate the ecological knowledge from the cultural perspective and practices to which it belongs, and so divorce the knowledge from its context (e.g. Yunupingu and Muller 2009 ). Moving forward, greater emphasis on developing pluralistic knowledge frameworks and methods for bridging the separate knowledge frameworks will enable richer, and more informed management of ecosystems and people, with greater conservation and human outcomes (e.g. Alexander et al. 2019 ; Gavin et al. 2018 ; Kaiser et al. 2019 ; Reid et al. 2020 ). Importantly, the best approaches for doing so are likely to differ between cultures and environments, but a number of case studies and meta-analyses provide examples for how this can be done, e.g. Table 7 , Alexander et al. ( 2019 ) (although many of these are from developed nations, i.e. Canada, New Zealand).

Access to accurate, up-to-date information

To be able to choose actions that support conservation of marine ecosystems, both society and decision makers need access to clear, accurate, and up-to-date information on the pressures being placed on the marine environment and solutions for reducing those pressures (see also Kelly et al. 2021 , this issue). In order to provide accurate up-to-date information for decision making, information needs to be made available in real-time and in formats that are digestible to those that need and utilise this information (e.g. Lowerre-Barbieri et al. 2019 ). This requires improved dataflows, rapid analyses, reliable interpretation and accessible delivery. It will also require that all information generators (industry, business, society) make information accessible (Evans et al. 2018b ). Ultimately, mechanisms that can bring all of these varying data sources together to provide key indicators that can be tracked and translated into forms that conservation managers can both understand and use are needed (Evans et al. 2019 ). Effective use of historical datasets is also needed – these data are needed to develop skill in forecasts and an understanding of what past activities have occurred in order to understand future risk. This will require digitising information that is not in digital formats, updating data in out-dated formats (that result in data not being able to be used anymore) and making these available through easy to access dataflows. Targeted efforts in this regard have been undertaken with oceanographic data (Woodruff et al. 2005 ). Further, large scale assessments relating to the marine environment, currently released at scales of 5 or more years, are recognising the need to provide information in more digestible formats (e.g. the interactive atlas of the most recent working group 1 assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, see https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/ ), in ways that allow for updating of information on more frequent time scales (e.g. for example on annual time scales such as that of the World Meteorological Organisation’s state of the global climate reports, see https://public.wmo.int/en/our-mandate/climate/wmo-statement-state-of-global-climate . These efforts need to be expanded to include information on marine ecosystems.

Methods for communication can include technological tools such as environmental dashboards, or computer and smartphone applications. These tools can provide information on the current status of marine ecosystems and the future threat of climate change (Melbourne-Thomas et al. 2021 ; Trebilco et al. 2021 , this issue) and economic activities (Novaglio et al. 2021 , this issue) to these systems. They can provide information about ecological outcomes of government policies and link consumers to supply chains and sustainability information on products (Farmery et al. 2021 , this issue), and ultimately provide steps that individuals can implement to contribute to positive outcomes for marine environments. Increased uptake and positive outcomes are more likely if the information is locally specific and place-based.

Overcoming barriers to integrated, ecosystem-based management

As identified in our drivers of change for conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, movement towards integrated, ecosystem-based management (EBM) will be a key factor in working towards a more sustainable future. Implementing EBM and ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) has been a goal in international environmental laws – implicitly since the 1980s and, more recently, explicitly in legal instruments such as fisheries management agreements and in principles and guidance developed under the Convention for Biological Diversity (Enright and Boteler 2020 ). However, there remain significant challenges for its effective implementation through formal legal instruments, including the need for co-operation between agencies and more practical guidance about its implementation in different regions and at different governance scales, and the fundamental need for greater political willpower (Enright and Boteler 2020 ; Rudd et al. 2018 ). There have been calls for ecosystem approaches that integrate across multiple sectors, and for expanding the concepts of integrated coastal zone management (Post and Lundin 1996 ) to open ocean systems. Stephenson et al. ( 2019 ) describe a pathway towards integrated management for marine systems, identify steps for implementation and consider factors that might enable or inhibit progress towards integrated management. A detailed treatment of actions to progress the successful implementation of integrated, ecosystem-based management is beyond the scope of our study (although many of the actions we identify in Tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 could help address this challenge, and build on what is described by Stephenson et al. 2019 ). Important barriers to achieving integrated EBM and EBFM more broadly are:

Increased need for understanding of the cumulative effects of the pressures caused by the activities of multiple sectors across multiple jurisdictions (current knowledge gaps are also a consequence of the limited implementation of EBM)

That adaptive management, while crucial to effective EBM approaches, remains controversial, difficult to implement and enforce, and absent from, or afforded mere lip-service in, most existing legal and policy frameworks (e.g. Enright and Boteler 2020 ).

A lack of indicators and reference levels to measure achievements towards EB(F)M, limiting the capacity to implement effective adaptive management approaches

Limitations in our understanding about the social dimensions of EBM (which encompasses socio-economic-ecological dimensions), particularly in the coastal zone (Le Tissier 2020 )

Lack of tools that consider all dimensions and dynamics, but are efficient and accessible.

Since EBM is most often system-specific, EBM frameworks need to be tailored to fit the specific context of different systems.

Limited experience in coordinated planning across agencies and jurisdictions – a task that is fundamental to EBM. In particular, EBM planning involves: (1) cross-jurisdictional engagement for natural systems that cross State and Continental boundaries, and (2) integration of management activities between conservation and resource extraction agencies.

Overcoming these barriers requires secure funding and support for the managers at all levels, to learn and implement ecosystem-based approaches, and could include use of novel technology for testing and monitoring outcomes of management decisions (Fulton 2021 ). Engagement of stakeholders with ecosystem-based management process is also fundamental, and can be enhanced by employing knowledge brokers and graphic artists who facilitate communication between different disciplines and stakeholders, and working with psychologists to understand biases that may create barriers to participation (Fulton 2021 ; Stephenson et al. 2019 ). Finally, clarifying systems and processes for monitoring and responding to changes in marine ecosystems (e.g. through information transfer, as discussed in the section above) could enable adaptive management requirements to be formalized in legal and policy frameworks.

Shifting towards a more equitable, circular economy

Changing the economic model of profit at the cost of marine ecosystems is critical for marine conservation in the long term. Capitalism has enabled the situation where businesses profit through disproportionately impacting marine ecosystems, but the consequent loss of ecosystem services is felt by all. For example, fewer than 100 companies are responsible for half of the global decline in surface ocean pH to 2015 and 42–50% of increase in mean surface warming to 2010 (Ekwurzel et al. 2017 ; Licker et al. 2019 ). Escaping the heavy hand of capitalist interests will require strong governance and, ultimately, social pressure for stronger regulation and more equitable economic markets and sustainability (see also Novaglio et al. 2021 ; Virdin et al. 2021 ). It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in detail how to change the economic model, however many of our recommended actions could contribute to such a shift. This includes accounting for the economic value of ecosystem goods and services in decision-making processes and increased accountability and transparency around taxation and subsidisation of organisations that pollute or otherwise harm marine ecosystems and development of indicators to support those. While these actions are not sufficient to change the economic model, they are critical steps for safeguarding marine ecosystems into the future.

Human–environment interactions and COVID

The recent evolution of the COVID-19 global pandemic has changed the course of the next decade and has affected some of the aspects discussed in this paper. For instance, in some countries, a shift in the allocation of funding to new priorities (e.g. medical therapies and research) might delay progress towards meeting some of the UN SDGs (Bates et al. 2020 ). In addition, reduced food supply during the lockdown in some regions may have elicited illegal fishing (e.g. rural India, Pinder et al. 2020 ), and reduced control of invasive alien species may have resulted in these species expanding their range (evidence from land, Manenti et al. 2020 ), with important consequences on biodiversity. While we recognise the disruptive effects of COVID-19 on individuals, society and the environment, we also believe that the pandemic has prompted some positive changes. For example, it has led society to reconsider values and priorities and to discuss alternative economic models that would result in improved societal and environmental outcomes (Cohen 2020 ). Most importantly, COVID-19 has highlighted the strong link between humans and nature and has demonstrated that large-scale societal changes have the potential to reduce human impacts and benefit biodiversity conservation (Bates et al. 2020 ). Such benefits include, for example, cleaner air and cleaner and quieter water (Thomson and Barclay 2020 ), and increased breeding success for some threatened species due to reduced exploitation during lockdown (Bates et al. 2020 ; Manenti et al. 2020 ). Regardless of the negative or positive nature of its consequences, COVID-19 has created momentum to catalyse societal consent and undertake actions that will place us on a trajectory towards a more sustainable future. Capitalising on this ephemeral momentum is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.

Conclusions

Our global dependence on marine resources and ecosystem services has resulted in the severe degradation of many systems. These impacts are exacerbated by climate change, which is now the long-term driver with the greatest impact on marine ecosystems and biodiversity. However, there are still many opportunities to mitigate cumulative, more immediate impacts in our oceans, with the critical need to protect and maintain biodiversity and ecosystem function broadly recognised. Conservation programs tend to fail because they do not consider social dimensions of conservation (Bennett et al. 2017 ). These human elements need to be a core focus for improving conservation success, but the question is how to do ‘human-centred’ conservation in a way that ultimately still prioritises biodiversity and ecosystems. This paper is a step in that direction.

We highlight four key drivers of change: financial mechanisms; sectoral stewardship; management and governance; and social impetus for safeguarding marine ecosystems. Importantly, we highlight how considering the interrelationships between these drivers can identify concrete actions for forming a pathway to a more sustainable future. Furthermore, we outline the key factors that determine the capacity for societies to address the drivers.

While individual methods for communication of up-to-date information pertinent to conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, such as environmental dashboards, or computer and smartphone applications, currently exist and their use is expanding, centralised communication frameworks that act as synapses linking multiple systems and communities across the globe remain aspirational. Such global communication systems would further enhance the clear approach outlined in this paper of incorporating local awareness and knowledge into providing solutions to global scale problems. We highlight how this localised approach allows global issues to be tackled at more tractable scales that create a feeling that change is indeed achievable.

We have articulated an optimistic, sustainable future for global oceans with respect to the conservation of marine biodiversity and ecosystems and importantly, we have outlined how such a future is technically feasible by 2030. This future would go a long way to achieving the UN SDG 14 ‘Life Below Water’ Target 14.2 ‘Protect and Restore Ecosystems’. It should be noted, however, that this target has one indicator: The proportion of national exclusive economic zones managed using ecosystem-based approaches. As over fifty percent of the world’s oceans constitute the high seas (FAO 2020 ), which are not addressed within SDG 14.2, we purport that in order to more fully achieve a sustainable future for global oceans, mechanisms to develop dynamic ecosystem-based management in the high seas must be included in this future.

Availability of data and material

Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the ‘Future Seas’ initiative ( www.FutureSeas2030.org ), hosted by the Centre for Marine Socioecology at the University of Tasmania. This initiative delivers a series of journal articles addressing key challenges for the UN International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030. The general concepts and methods applied in many of these papers were developed in large collaborative workshops involving more participants than listed here as co-authors, and we are grateful for their collective input. We are particularly grateful to Anita McBain, Kimberley Norris, Scott Ling, and Sutej Hugu for suggestions and input at different stages of the process. We also thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their contributions and insights. Funding for Future Seas was provided by the Centre for Marine Socioecology, IMAS, MENZIES and the College of Arts, Law and Education, and the College of Science and Engineering at UTAS, and Snowchange from Finland. We acknowledge support from a Research Enhancement Program grant from the DVCR Office at UTAS. GTP was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, ELC was funded by an Imperial College Research Fellowship and CM was funded by an Endeavour Research Fellowship. We acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners and custodians of Sea Country all around the world, and recognise their collective wisdom and knowledge of our oceans and coasts.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. Centre for Marine Socioecology, IMAS, MENZIES and the College of Arts, Law and Education, and the College of Science and Engineering at UTAS, and Snowchange from Finland.

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Ward, D., Melbourne-Thomas, J., Pecl, G.T. et al. Safeguarding marine life: conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 32 , 65–100 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-022-09700-3

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• Published: 07 July 2022

A global horizon scan of issues impacting marine and coastal biodiversity conservation

• James E. Herbert-Read   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0243-4518 1   na1 ,
• Ann Thornton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7448-8497 2   na1 ,
• Diva J. Amon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3044-107X 3 , 4 ,
• Silvana N. R. Birchenough   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5321-8108 5 ,
• Isabelle M. Côté   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5368-4061 6 ,
• Maria P. Dias   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7281-4391 7 , 8 ,
• Brendan J. Godley 9 ,
• Sally A. Keith   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9634-2763 10 ,
• Emma McKinley   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8250-2842 11 ,
• Lloyd S. Peck   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3479-6791 12 ,
• Ricardo Calado 13 ,
• Omar Defeo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8318-528X 14 ,
• Steven Degraer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3159-5751 15 ,
• Emma L. Johnston   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2117-366X 16 ,
• Hermanni Kaartokallio 17 ,
• Peter I. Macreadie   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7362-0882 18 ,
• Anna Metaxas   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1935-6213 19 ,
• Agnes W. N. Muthumbi 20 ,
• David O. Obura   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2256-6649 21 , 22 ,
• David M. Paterson 23 ,
• Alberto R. Piola   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5003-8926 24 , 25 ,
• Anthony J. Richardson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9289-7366 26 , 27 ,
• Irene R. Schloss   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5917-8925 28 , 29 , 30 ,
• Paul V. R. Snelgrove   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-0472 31 ,
• Bryce D. Stewart 32 ,
• Paul M. Thompson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6195-3284 33 ,
• Gordon J. Watson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8274-7658 34 ,
• Thomas A. Worthington   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8138-9075 2 ,
• Moriaki Yasuhara   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0990-1764 35 &
• William J. Sutherland 2 , 36  

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume  6 ,  pages 1262–1270 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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The biodiversity of marine and coastal habitats is experiencing unprecedented change. While there are well-known drivers of these changes, such as overexploitation, climate change and pollution, there are also relatively unknown emerging issues that are poorly understood or recognized that have potentially positive or negative impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems. In this inaugural Marine and Coastal Horizon Scan, we brought together 30 scientists, policymakers and practitioners with transdisciplinary expertise in marine and coastal systems to identify new issues that are likely to have a significant impact on the functioning and conservation of marine and coastal biodiversity over the next 5–10 years. Based on a modified Delphi voting process, the final 15 issues presented were distilled from a list of 75 submitted by participants at the start of the process. These issues are grouped into three categories: ecosystem impacts, for example the impact of wildfires and the effect of poleward migration on equatorial biodiversity; resource exploitation, including an increase in the trade of fish swim bladders and increased exploitation of marine collagens; and new technologies, such as soft robotics and new biodegradable products. Our early identification of these issues and their potential impacts on marine and coastal biodiversity will support scientists, conservationists, resource managers and policymakers to address the challenges facing marine ecosystems.

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The fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will conclude negotiations on a global biodiversity framework in late-2022 that will aim to slow and reverse the loss of biodiversity and establish goals for positive outcomes by 2050 1 . Currently recognized drivers of declines in marine and coastal ecosystems include overexploitation of resources (for example, fishes, oil and gas), expansion of anthropogenic activities leading to cumulative impacts on the marine and coastal environment (for example, habitat loss, introduction of contaminants and pollution) and effects of climate change (for example, ocean warming, freshening and acidification). Within these broad categories, marine and coastal ecosystems face a wide range of emerging issues that are poorly recognized or understood, each having the potential to impact biodiversity. Researchers, conservation practitioners and marine resource managers must identify, understand and raise awareness of these relatively ‘unknown’ issues to catalyse further research into their underlying processes and impacts. Moreover, informing the public and policymakers of these issues can mitigate potentially negative impacts through precautionary principles before those effects become realized: horizon scans provide a platform to do this.

Horizon scans bring together experts from diverse disciplines to discuss issues that are (1) likely to have a positive or negative impact on biodiversity and conservation within the coming years and (2) not well known to the public or wider scientific community or face a substantial ‘step-change’ in their importance or application 2 . Horizon scans are an effective approach for pre-emptively identifying issues facing global conservation 3 . Indeed, marine issues previously identified through this approach include microplastics 4 , invasive lionfish 4 and electric pulse trawling 5 . To date, however, no horizon scan of this type has focused solely on issues related to marine and coastal biodiversity, although a scan on coastal shorebirds in 2012 identified potential threats to coastal ecosystems 6 . This horizon scan aims to benefit our ocean and human society by stimulating research and policy development that will underpin appropriate scientific advice on prevention, mitigation, management and conservation approaches in marine and coastal ecosystems.

We present the final 15 issues below in thematic groups identified post-scoring, rather than rank order (Fig. 1 ).

Numbers refer to the order presented in this article, rather than final ranking. Image of brine pool courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2014. Image of biodegradable bag courtesy of Katie Dunkley.

Ecosystem impacts

Wildfire impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems.

The frequency and severity of wildfires are increasing with climate change 7 . Since 2017, there have been fires of unprecedented scale and duration in Australia, Brazil, Portugal, Russia and along the Pacific coast of North America. In addition to threatening human life and releasing stored carbon, wildfires release aerosols, particles and large volumes of materials containing soluble forms of nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus and trace metals such as copper, lead and iron. Winds and rains can transport these materials over long distances to reach coastal and marine ecosystems. Australian wildfires, for example, triggered widespread phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Ocean 8 along with fish and invertebrate kills in estuaries 9 . Predicting the magnitude and effects of these acute inputs is difficult because they vary with the size and duration of wildfires, the burning vegetation type, rainfall patterns, riparian vegetation buffers, dispersal by aerosols and currents, seasonal timing and nutrient limitation in the recipient ecosystem. Wildfires might therefore lead to beneficial, albeit temporary, increases in primary productivity, produce no effect or have deleterious consequences, such as the mortality of benthic invertebrates, including corals, from sedimentation, coastal darkening (see below), eutrophication or algal blooms 10 .

Coastal darkening

Coastal ecosystems depend on the penetration of light for primary production by planktonic and attached algae and seagrass. However, climate change and human activities increase light attenuation through changes in dissolved materials modifying water colour and suspended particles. Increased precipitation, storms, permafrost thawing and coastal erosion have led to the ‘browning’ of freshwater ecosystems by elevated organic carbon, iron and particles, all of which are eventually discharged into the ocean 11 . Coastal eutrophication leading to algal blooms compounds this darkening by further blocking light penetration. Additionally, land-use change, dredging and bottom fishing can increase seafloor disturbance, resuspending sediments and increasing turbidity. Such changes could affect ocean chemistry, including photochemical degradation of dissolved organic carbon and generation of toxic chemicals. At moderate intensities, limited spatial scales and during heatwaves, coastal darkening may have some positive impacts such as limiting coral bleaching on shallow reefs 12 but, at high intensities and prolonged spatial and temporal extents, lower light-regimes can contribute to cumulative stressor effects thereby profoundly altering ecosystems. This darkening may result in shifts in species composition, distribution, behaviour and phenology, as well as declines in coastal habitats and their functions (for example, carbon sequestration) 13 .

Increased toxicity of metal pollution due to ocean acidification

Concerns about metal toxicity in the marine environment are increasing as we learn more about the complex interactions between metals and global climate change 14 . Despite tight regulation of polluters and remediation efforts in some countries, the high persistence of metals in contaminated sediments results in the ongoing remobilization of existing metal pollutants by storms, trawling and coastal development, augmented by continuing release of additional contaminants into coastal waters, particularly in urban and industrial areas across the globe 14 . Ocean acidification increases the bioavailability, uptake and toxicity of metals in seawater and sediments, with direct toxicity effects on some marine organisms 15 . Not all biogeochemical changes will result in increased toxicity; in pelagic and deep-sea ecosystems, where trace metals are often deficient, increasing acidity may increase bioavailability and, in shallow waters, stimulate productivity for non-calcifying phytoplankton 16 . However, increased uptake of metals in wild-caught and farmed bivalves linked to ocean acidification could also affect human health, especially given that these species provide 25% of the world’s seafood. The combined effects of ocean acidification and metals could not only increase the levels of contamination in these organisms but could also impact their populations in the future 14 .

Equatorial marine communities are becoming depauperate due to climate migration

Climate change is causing ocean warming, resulting in a poleward shift of existing thermal zones. In response, species are tracking the changing ocean environmental conditions globally, with range shifts moving five times faster than on land 17 . In mid-latitudes and higher latitudes, as some species move away from current distribution ranges, other species from warmer regions can replace them 18 . However, the hottest climatic zones already host the most thermally tolerant species, which cannot be replaced due to their geographical position. Thus, climate change reduces equatorial species richness and has caused the formerly unimodal latitudinal diversity gradient in many communities to now become bimodal. This bimodality (dip in equatorial diversity) is projected to increase within the next 100 years if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced 19 . The ecological consequences of this decline in equatorial zones are unclear, especially when combined with impacts of increasing human extraction and pollution 20 . Nevertheless, emerging ecological communities in equatorial systems are likely to have reduced resilience and capacity to support ecosystem services and human livelihoods.

Effects of altered nutritional content of fish due to climate change

Essential fatty acids (EFAs) are critical to maintaining human and animal health and fish consumption provides the primary source of EFAs for billions of people. In aquatic ecosystems, phytoplankton synthesize EFAs, such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) 21 , with pelagic fishes then consuming phytoplankton. However, concentrations of EFAs in fishes vary, with generally higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids in slower-growing species from colder waters 22 . Ongoing effects of climate change are impacting the production of EFAs by phytoplankton, with warming waters predicted to reduce the availability of DHA by about 10–58% by 2100 23 ; a 27.8% reduction in available DHA is associated with a 2.5 °C rise in water temperature 21 . Combined with geographical range shifts in response to environmental change affecting the abundance and distribution of fishes, this could lead to a reduction in sufficient quantities of EFAs for fishes, particularly in the tropics 24 . Changes to EFA production by phytoplankton in response to climate change, as shown for Antarctic waters 25 , could have cascading effects on the nutrient content of species further up the food web, with consequences for marine predators and human health 26 .

Resource exploitation

The untapped potential of marine collagens and their impacts on marine ecosystems.

Collagens are structural proteins increasingly used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and biomedical applications. Growing demand for collagen has fuelled recent efforts to find new sources that avoid religious constraints and alleviate risks associated with disease transmission from conventional bovine and porcine sources 27 . The search for alternative sources has revealed an untapped opportunity in marine organisms, such as from fisheries bycatch 28 . However, this new source may discourage efforts to reduce the capture of non-target species. Sponges and jellyfish offer a premium source of marine collagens. While the commercial-scale harvesting of sponges is unlikely to be widely sustainable, there may be some opportunity in sponge aquaculture and jellyfish harvesting, especially in areas where nuisance jellyfish species bloom regularly (for example, Mediterranean and Japan Seas). The use of sharks and other cartilaginous fish to supply marine collagens is of concern given the unprecedented pressure on these species. However, the use of coproducts derived from the fish-processing industry (for example, skin, bones and trims) offers a more sustainable approach to marine collagen production and could actively contribute to the blue bio-economy agenda and foster circularity 29 .

Impacts of expanding trade for fish swim bladders on target and non-target species

In addition to better-known luxury dried seafoods, such as shark fins, abalone and sea cucumbers, there is an increasing demand for fish swim bladders, also known as fish maw 30 . This demand may trigger an expansion of unsustainable harvests of target fish populations, with additional impacts on marine biodiversity through bycatch 30 , 31 . The fish swim-bladder trade has gained a high profile because the overexploitation of totoaba ( Totoaba macdonaldi) has driven both the target population and the vaquita ( Phocoena sinus) (which is bycaught in the Gulf of Mexico fishery) to near extinction 32 . By 2018, totoaba swim bladders were being sold for US$46,000 kg −1 . This extremely lucrative trade disrupts efforts to encourage sustainable fisheries. However, increased demand on the totoaba was itself caused by overexploitation over the last century of the closely related traditional species of choice, the Chinese bahaba ( Bahaba taipingensis) . We now risk both repeating this pattern and increasing its scale of impact, where depletion of a target species causes markets to switch to species across broader taxonomic and biogeographical ranges 31 . Not only does this cascading effect threaten other croakers and target species, such as catfish and pufferfish but maw nets set in more diverse marine habitats are likely to create bycatch of sharks, rays, turtles and other species of conservation concern.

Impacts of fishing for mesopelagic species on the biological ocean carbon pump

Growing concerns about food security have generated interest in harvesting largely unexploited mesopelagic fishes that live at depths of 200–1,000 m (ref. 33 ). Small lanternfishes (Myctophidae) dominate this potentially 10 billion ton community, exceeding the mass of all other marine fishes combined 34 and spanning millions of square kilometres of the open ocean. Mesopelagic fish are generally unsuitable for human consumption but could potentially provide fishmeal for aquaculture 34 or be used for fertilizers. Although we know little of their biology, their diel vertical migration transfers carbon, obtained by feeding in surface waters at night, to deeper waters during the day across many hundreds and even thousands of metres depth where it is released by excretion, egestion and death. This globally important carbon transport pathway contributes to the biological pump 35 and sequesters carbon to the deep sea 36 . Recent estimates put the contribution of all fishes to the biological ocean pump at 16.1% (± s.d. 13%) (ref. 37 ). The potential large-scale removal of mesopelagic fishes could disrupt a major pathway of carbon transport into the ocean depths.

Extraction of lithium from deep-sea brine pools

Global groups, such as the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative, emphasize increasing concern about the ecosystem impacts from deep-sea resource extraction 38 . The demand for batteries, including for electric vehicles, will probably lead to a demand for lithium that is more than five times its current level by 2030 39 . While concentrations are relatively low in seawater, some deep-sea brines and cold seeps offer higher concentrations of lithium. Furthermore, new technologies, such as solid-state electrolyte membranes, can enrich the concentration of lithium from seawater sources by 43,000 times, increasing the energy efficiency and profitability of lithium extraction from the sea 39 . These factors could divert extraction of lithium resources away from terrestrial to marine mining, with the potential for significant impacts to localized deep-sea brine ecosystems. These brine pools probably host many endemic and genetically distinct species that are largely undiscovered or awaiting formal description. Moreover, the extremophilic species in these environments offer potential sources of marine genetic resources that could be used in new biomedical applications including pharmaceuticals, industrial agents and biomaterials 40 . These concerns point to the need to better quantify and monitor biodiversity in these extreme environments to establish baselines and aid management.

New technologies

Colocation of marine activities.

Climate change, energy needs and food security have moved to the top of global policy agendas 41 . Increasing energy needs, alongside the demands of fisheries and transport infrastructure, have led to the proposal of colocated and multifunctional structures to deliver economic benefits, optimize spatial planning and minimize the environmental impacts of marine activities 42 . These designs often bring technical, social, economic and environmental challenges. Some studies have begun to explore these multipurpose projects (for example, offshore windfarms colocated with aquaculture developments and/or Marine Protected Areas) and how to adapt these concepts to ensure they are ‘fit for purpose’, economically viable and reliable. However, environmental and ecosystem assessment, management and regulatory frameworks for colocated and multi-use structures need to be established to prevent these activities from compounding rather than mitigating the environmental impacts from climate change 43 .

Floating marine cities

In April 2019, the UN-HABITAT programme convened a meeting of scientists, architects, designers and entrepreneurs to discuss how floating cities might be a solution to urban challenges such as climate change and lack of housing associated with a rising human population ( https://unhabitat.org/roundtable-on-floating-cities-at-unhq-calls-for-innovation-to-benefit-all ). The concept of floating marine cities—hubs of floating structures placed at sea—was born in the middle of the twentieth century and updated designs now aim to translate this vision into reality 44 . Oceanic locations provide benefits from wave and tidal renewable energy and food production supported by hydroponic agriculture 45 . Modular designs also offer greater flexibility than traditional static terrestrial cities, whereby accommodation and facilities could be incorporated or removed in response to changes in population or specific events. The cost of construction in harsh offshore environments, rather than technology, currently limits the development of marine cities and potential designs will need to consider the consequences of more frequent and extreme climate events. Although the artificial hard substrates created for these floating cities could act as stepping stones, facilitating species movement in response to climate change 46 , this could also increase the spread of invasive species. Finally, the development of offshore living will raise issues in relation to governance and land ownership that must be addressed for marine cities to be viable 47 .

Trace-element contamination compounded by the global transition to green technologies

The persistent environmental impacts of metal and metalloid trace-element contamination in coastal sediments are now increasing after a long decline 48 . However, the complex sources of contamination challenge their management. The acceleration of the global transition to green technologies, including electric vehicles, will increase demand for batteries by over 10% annually in the coming years 49 . Electric vehicle batteries currently depend almost exclusively on lithium-ion chemistries, with potential trace-element emissions across their life cycle from raw material extraction to recycling or end-of-life disposal. Few jurisdictions treat lithium-ion batteries as harmful waste, enabling landfill disposal with minimal recycling 49 . Cobalt and nickel are the primary ecotoxic elements in next-generation lithium-ion batteries 50 , although there is a drive to develop a cobalt-free alternative likely to contain higher nickel content 50 . Some battery binder and electrolyte chemicals are toxic to aquatic life or form persistent organic pollutants during incomplete burning. Increasing pollution from battery production, recycling and disposal in the next decade could substantially increase the potentially toxic trace-element contamination in marine and coastal systems worldwide.

New underwater tracking systems to study non-surfacing marine animals

The use of tracking data in science and conservation has grown exponentially in recent decades. Most trajectory data collected on marine species to date, however, has been restricted to large and near-surface species, limited by the size of the devices and reliance on radio signals that do not propagate well underwater. New battery-free technology based on acoustic telemetry, named ‘underwater backscatter localization’ (UBL), may allow high-accuracy (<1 m) tracking of animals travelling at any depth and over large distances 51 . Still in the early stages of development, UBL technology has significant potential to help fill knowledge gaps in the distribution and spatial ecology of small, non-surfacing marine species, as well as the early life-history stages of many species 52 , over the next decades. However, the potential negative impacts of this methodology on the behaviour of animals are still to be determined. Ultimately, UBL may inform spatial management both in coastal and offshore regions, as well as in the high seas and address a currently biased perspective of how marine animals use ocean space, which is largely based on near-surface or aerial marine megafauna (for example, ref. 53 ).

Soft robotics for marine research

The application and utility of soft robotics in marine environments is expected to accelerate in the next decade. Soft robotics, using compliant materials inspired by living organisms, could eventually offer increased flexibility at depth because they do not face the same constraints as rigid robots that need pressurized systems to function 54 . This technology could increase our ability to monitor and map the deep sea, with both positive and negative consequences for deep-sea fauna. Soft-grab robots could facilitate collection of delicate samples for biodiversity monitoring but, without careful management, could also add pollutants and waste to these previously unexplored and poorly understood environments 55 . With advancing technology, potential deployment of swarms of small robots could collect basic environmental data to facilitate mapping of the seabed. Currently limited by power supply, energy-harvesting modules are in development that enable soft robots to ‘swallow’ organic material and convert it into power 56 , although this could result in inadvertently harvesting rare deep-sea organisms. Soft robots themselves may also be ingested by predatory species mistaking them for prey. Deployment of soft robotics will require careful monitoring of both its benefits and risks to marine biodiversity.

The effects of new biodegradable materials in the marine environment

Mounting public pressure to address marine plastic pollution has prompted the replacement of some fossil fuel-based plastics with bio-based biodegradable polymers. This consumer pressure is creating an economic incentive to adopt such products rapidly and some companies are promoting their environmental benefits without rigorous toxicity testing and/or life-cycle assessments. Materials such as polybutylene succinate (PBS), polylactic acid (PLA) or cellulose and starch-based materials may become marine litter and cause harmful effects akin to conventional plastics 57 . The long-term and large-scale effect of the use of biodegradable polymers in products (for example, clothing) and the unintended release of byproducts, such as microfibres, into the environment remain unknown. However, some natural microfibres have greater toxicity than plastic microfibres when consumed by aquatic invertebrates 58 . Jurisdictions should enact and enforce suitable regulations to require the individual assessment of all new materials intended to biodegrade in a full range of marine environmental conditions. In addition, testing should include studies on the toxicity of major transition chemicals created during the breakdown process 59 , ideally considering the different trophic levels of marine food webs.

This scan identified three categories of horizon issues: impacts on, and alterations to, ecosystems; changes to resource use and extraction; and the emergence of technologies. While some of the issues discussed, such as improved monitoring of species (underwater tracking and soft robotics) and more sustainable resource use (marine collagens), may have some positive outcomes for marine and coastal biodiversity, most identified issues are expected to have substantial negative impacts if not managed or mitigated appropriately. This imbalance highlights the considerable emerging pressures facing marine ecosystems that are often a byproduct of human activities.

Four issues identified in this scan related to ongoing large-scale (hundreds to many thousands of square kilometres) alterations to marine ecosystems (wildfires, coastal darkening, depauperate equatorial communities and altered nutritional fish content), either through the impacts of global climate change or other human activities. There are already clear impacts of climate change, for example, on stores of blue carbon (for example, ref. 60 ) and small-scale fisheries (for example, ref. 61 ) but the identification of these issues highlights the need for global action that reverses such trends. The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) is now underway, aligning with other decadal policy priorities, including the Sustainable Development Goals ( https://sdgs.un.org/ ), the 2030 targets for biodiversity to be agreed in 2022, the conclusion of the ongoing negotiations on biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions (BBNJ) ( https://www.un.org/bbnj/ ), the UN Conference on Biodiversity (COP15) ( https://www.unep.org/events/conference/un-biodiversity-conference-cop-15 ) and the UN Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26) ( https://ukcop26.org/ ). While some campaigns to allocate 30% of the ocean to Marine Protected Areas by 2030 are prominently aired 62 , the unintended future consequences of such protection and how to monitor and manage these areas, remain unclear 63 , 64 , 65 .

Another set of issues related to anticipated increases in marine resource use and extraction (swim bladders, marine collagens, lithium extraction and mesopelagic fisheries). The complex issue of mitigating the impacts on marine conservation and biodiversity of exploiting and using newly discovered resources must consider public perceptions of the ocean 66 , 67 , market forces and the sustainable blue economy 68 , 69 .

The final set of issues related to new technological advancements, with many offering more sustainable opportunities, albeit some having potentially unintended negative consequences on marine and coastal biodiversity. For example, trace-element contamination from green technologies and harmful effects of biodegradable products highlights the need to assess the step-changes in impacts from their increased use and avoid the paradox of technologies designed to mitigate the damaging effects of climate change on biodiversity themselves damaging biodiversity. Indeed, the impacts on marine and coastal biodiversity from emerging technologies currently in development (such as underwater tracking or soft robotics) need to be assessed before deployment at scale.

There are limitations to any horizon scanning process that aims to identify global issues and a different group of experts may have identified a different set of issues. By inviting participants from a range of subject backgrounds and global regions and asking them to canvass their network of colleagues and collaborators, we aimed to identify as broad a set of issues as possible. We acknowledge, however, that only about one-quarter of the participants were from non-academic organizations, which may have skewed the submitted issues and how they were voted on. However, others 3 reported no significant correlation between participants’ areas of research expertise and the top issues selected in the horizon scan conducted in 2009. Therefore, horizon scans do not necessarily simply represent issues that reflect the expertise of participants. We also sought to achieve diversity by inviting participants from 22 countries and actively seeking representatives from the global south. However, the final panel of 30 participants spanned only 11 countries, most in the global north. We were forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to hold the scan online and while we hoped that this would enable participants to engage from around the world alleviating broader global inequalities in science 63 , digital inequality was in fact enhanced during the pandemic 70 . Our experience highlights the need for other mechanisms that can promote global representation in these scans.

This Marine and Coastal Horizon Scan seeks to raise awareness of issues that may impact marine and coastal biodiversity conservation in the next 5–10 years. Our aim is to bring these issues to the attention of scientists, policymakers, practitioners and the wider community, either directly, through social networks or the mainstream media. Whilst it is almost impossible to determine whether issues gained prominence as a direct result of a horizon scan, some issues featured in previous scans have seen growth in reporting and awareness. Others 3 found that 71% of topics identified in the Horizon Scan in 2009 had seen an increase in their importance over the next 10 years. Issues such as microplastics and invasive lionfish had received increased research and investment from scientists, funders, managers and policymakers to understand their impacts and the horizon scans may have helped motivate this increase. Horizon scans, therefore, should primarily act as signposts, putting focus onto particular issues and providing support for researchers and practitioners to seek investment in these areas.

Whilst recognizing that marine and coastal environments are complex social-ecological systems, the role of governance, policy and litigation on all areas of marine science needs to be developed, as it is yet to be established to the same extent as in terrestrial ecosystems 71 . Indeed, tackling many of the issues presented in this scan will require an understanding of the human dimensions relating to these issues, through fields of research including but not limited to ocean literacy 72 , 73 , social justice, equity 74 and human health 75 . Importantly, however, horizon scanning has proved an efficient tool in identifying issues that have subsequently come to the forefront of public knowledge and policy decisions, while also helping to focus future research. The scale of the issues facing marine and coastal areas emphasizes the need to identify and prioritize, at an early stage, those issues specifically facing marine ecosystems, especially within this UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Identification of issues

In March 2021, we brought together a core team of 11 participants from a broad range of marine and coastal disciplines. The core team suggested names of individuals outside their subject area who were also invited to participate in the horizon scan. To ensure we included as many different subject areas as possible within marine and coastal conservation, we selected one individual from each discipline. Our panel of experts comprised 30 (37% female) marine and coastal scientists, policymakers and practitioners (27% from non-academic institutions), with cross-disciplinary expertise in ecology (including tropical, temperate, polar and deep-sea ecosystems), palaeoecology, conservation, oceanography, climate change, ecotoxicology, technology, engineering and marine social sciences (including governance, blue economy and ocean literacy). Participants were invited from 22 countries across six continents, resulting in a final panel of 30 experts from 11 countries (Europe n  = 17 (including the three organizers); North America and Caribbean n  = 4; South America n  = 3; Australasia n  = 3; Asia n  = 1; Africa n  = 2). All experts co-authored this paper.

To reduce the potential for bias in the identification of suitable issues, each participant was invited to consult their own network and required to submit two to five issues that they considered new and likely to have a positive or negative impact on marine and coastal biodiversity conservation in the next 5–10 years ( Supplementary Information text describes instructions given to participants). Each issue was described in paragraphs of ~200 words (plus references). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, participants relied mainly on virtual meetings and online communication using email, social-media platforms, online conferences and networking events. Through these channels ~680 people were canvassed by the participants, counting all direct in-person or online discussions as individual contacts but treating social-media posts or generic emails as a single contact. This process resulted in a long list of 75 issues that were considered in the first round of scoring (see Supplementary Table 1 for the full list of initially submitted issues).

Round 1 scoring

The initial list of proposed issues was then shortened through a scoring process. We used a modified Delphi-style 76 voting process, which has been consistently applied in horizon scans since 2009 (refs. 4 , 77 ) (see Fig. 2 for the stepwise process). This process ensured that consideration and selection of issues remained repeatable, transparent and inclusive. Panel members were asked to confidentially and independently score the long list of 75 issues from 1 (low) to 1,000 (high) on the basis of the following criteria:

Whether the issue is new (with ‘new’ issues scoring higher) or is a well-known issue likely to exhibit a significant step-change in impact

Whether the issue is likely to be important and impactful over the next 5–10 years

Whether the issue specifically impacts marine and coastal biodiversity

Left and right columns show the process for the first and second rounds of scoring, respectively.

Participants were also asked whether they had heard of the issue or not.

‘Voter fatigue’ can result in issues at the end of a lengthy list not receiving the same consideration as those at the beginning 76 . We counteracted this potential bias by randomly assigning participants to one of three differently ordered long-lists of issues. Participants’ scores were converted to ranks (1–75). We had aimed to retain the top 30 issues with the highest median ranks for the second round of assessment at the workshop but kept 31 issues because two issues achieved equal median ranks. In addition, we identified one issue that had been incorrectly grouped with three others and presented this as a separate issue. The subsequent online workshop to discuss this shortlist, therefore, considered the top-ranked 32 issues (Fig. 3a ) (see Supplementary Table 2 for the full list).

a , Round 1. Each point represents an individual issue. For all issue titles, see Supplementary Table 1 . Issues in dark blue were retained for the second round. Issues that were ranked higher were generally those that participants had not heard of (Spearman rank correlation = 0.38, P  < 0.001). b , Round 2. Scores as in round 1. For titles of the second round of 32 issues, see Supplementary Table 2 . The 15 final issues (marked in red) achieved the top ranks (horizontal dashed line) and had only been heard of by 50% of participants (vertical dashed line). Red circles, squares and triangles denote issues relating to ecosystem impacts, resource exploitation and new technologies, respectively. The two grey issues marked with crosses were discounted during final discussions because participants could not identify the horizon component of these issues.

Source data

Workshop and round 2 scoring.

Before the workshop, each participant was assigned up to four of the 32 issues to research in more detail and contribute further information to the discussion. We convened a one-day workshop online in September 2021. The geographic spread of participants meant that time zones spanned 17 h. Despite these constraints, discussions remained detailed, focused, varied and lively. In addition, participants made use of the chat function on the platform to add notes, links to articles and comments to the discussion. After discussing each issue, participants re-scored the topic (1–1,000, low to high) based on novelty and the issue’s importance for, and probable impact on, marine and coastal biodiversity (3 participants out of 30 did not score all issues and therefore their scores were discounted). At the end of the selection process, scores were again converted to ranks and collated. Highest-ranked issues were then discussed by correspondence focusing on the same three criteria as outlined above, after which the top 15 horizon issues were selected (Fig. 3b ).

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19703485.v1 . Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This Marine and Coastal Horizon Scan was funded by Oceankind. S.N.R.B. is supported by EcoStar (DM048) and Cefas (My time). R.C. acknowledges FCT/MCTES for the financial support to CESAM (UIDP/50017/2020, UIDB/50017/2020, LA/P/0094/2020) through national funds. O.D. is supported by CSIC Uruguay and Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. J.E.H.-R. is supported by the Whitten Lectureship in Marine Biology. S.A.K. is supported by a Natural Environment Research Council grant (NE/S00050X/1). P.I.M. is supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP200100575). D.M.P. is supported by the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTS). A.R.P. is supported by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. W.J.S. is funded by Arcadia. A.T. is supported by Oceankind. M.Y. is supported by the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative and bioDISCOVERY. We are grateful to everyone who submitted ideas to the exercise and the following who are not authors but who suggested a topic that made the final list: R. Brown (colocation of marine activities), N. Graham and C. Hicks (altered nutritional content of fish), A. Thornton (soft robotics), A. Vincent (fish swim bladders) and T. Webb (mesopelagic fisheries).

Author information

These authors contributed equally: James E. Herbert-Read, Ann Thornton.

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

James E. Herbert-Read

Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

Ann Thornton, Thomas A. Worthington & William J. Sutherland

SpeSeas, D’Abadie, Trinidad and Tobago

Diva J. Amon

Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Lowestoft, UK

Silvana N. R. Birchenough

Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Isabelle M. Côté

Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c), Department of Animal Biology, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Maria P. Dias

BirdLife International, The David Attenborough Building, Cambridge, UK

Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK

Brendan J. Godley

Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

Sally A. Keith

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Emma McKinley

British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge, UK

Lloyd S. Peck

ECOMARE, CESAM—Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies, Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Santiago University Campus, Aveiro, Portugal

Ricardo Calado

Laboratory of Marine Sciences (UNDECIMAR), Faculty of Sciences, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Operational Directorate Natural Environment, Marine Ecology and Management, Brussels, Belgium

Steven Degraer

School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Emma L. Johnston

Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Hermanni Kaartokallio

Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood Campus, Burwood, Victoria, Australia

Peter I. Macreadie

Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Anna Metaxas

Department of Biology, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

Agnes W. N. Muthumbi

Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean, Mombasa, Kenya

David O. Obura

School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Scottish Oceans Institute, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

David M. Paterson

Servício de Hidrografía Naval, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Alberto R. Piola

Instituto Franco-Argentino sobre Estudios de Clima y sus Impactos, CONICET/CNRS, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Anthony J. Richardson

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Oceans and Atmosphere, Queensland Biosciences Precinct, St Lucia, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Instituto Antártico Argentino, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Irene R. Schloss

Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC-CONICET), Ushuaia, Argentina

Universidad Nacional de Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur, Ushuaia, Argentina

Department of Ocean Sciences and Biology Department, Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Paul V. R. Snelgrove

Department of Environment and Geography, University of York, York, UK

Bryce D. Stewart

Lighthouse Field Station, School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Cromarty, UK

Paul M. Thompson

Institute of Marine Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

Gordon J. Watson

School of Biological Sciences, Area of Ecology and Biodiversity, Swire Institute of Marine Science, Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality, Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution, The University of Hong Kong, Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building, Hong Kong, China

Moriaki Yasuhara

Biosecurity Research Initiative at St Catharine’s (BioRISC), St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

William J. Sutherland

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Contributions

J.E.H.-R. and A.T. contributed equally to the manuscript. J.E.H.-R., A.T. and W.J.S. devised, organized and led the Marine and Coastal Horizon Scan. D.J.A., S.N.R.B., I.M.C., M.P.D., B.J.G., S.A.K., E.M. and L.S.P. formed the core team and are listed alphabetically in the author list. All other authors, R.C., O.D., S.D., E.L.J., H.K., P.I.M., A.M., A.W.N.M., D.O.O., D.M.P., A.R.P., A.J.R., I.R.S., P.V.R.S., B.D.S., P.M.T., G.J.W., T.A.W. and M.Y. are listed alphabetically. All authors contributed to and participated in the process and all were involved in writing and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to James E. Herbert-Read or Ann Thornton .

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Herbert-Read, J.E., Thornton, A., Amon, D.J. et al. A global horizon scan of issues impacting marine and coastal biodiversity conservation. Nat Ecol Evol 6 , 1262–1270 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01812-0

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The Importance of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

A marine protected area (MPA) is a section of the ocean where a government has placed limits on human activity. Many MPAs allow people to use the area in ways that do not damage the environment.

Biology, Ecology, Earth Science, Oceanography, Geography, Physical Geography

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A marine protected area (MPA) is a section of the ocean where a government has placed limits on human activity. Many MPAs allow people to use the area in ways that do not damage the environment . Some ban fishing . A few do not allow people to enter the area at all. MPAs have been established because the ocean and the things that live in it face many dangers. Threats to the ocean include overfishing , litter , water pollution , and global climate change . These threats have caused a decline in the population of many fish, marine mammals , and other sea creatures. Marine protected areas can have many different names, including marine parks , marine conservation zones , marine reserves , marine sanctuaries, and no-take zones . More than 5,000 MPAs have been established around the world. Together, they cover a little more than 8 percent of the ocean as of 2023. Marine protected areas can be established in a variety of aquatic habitats . Some MPAs are in the open ocean . Many MPAs protect coastlines . Others cover estuaries, places where rivers enter the sea. In estuaries, freshwater and saltwater mix. Some freshwater habitats, including protected areas in the Great Lakes , are also considered MPAs. Goals of MPAs Different MPAs have different goals. The main focus of many MPAs is to protect marine habitats and the variety of life that they support. For example, the Galápagos Marine Reserve, which lies about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the west coast of South America, protects a series of small islands and the surrounding waters. This reserve includes a tremendous variety of habitats, from coral reefs to cold ocean currents to mangrove swamps , where trees grow directly in salty seawater. The waters around the Galápagos are home to 3,000 different plant and animal species, including unusual species such as the marine iguana ( Amblyrhynchus cristatus ), the world’s only seagoing lizard . Some MPAs focus on conserving historic sites such as shipwrecks . The USS Monitor was a warship that sank in a storm off the coast of North Carolina during the United States Civil War in the 1860s. In 1975, the USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary was established to protect the remains of the ship. It was the nation’s first national marine sanctuary. Other MPAs are established in order to ensure that resources are sustainable —that they will not run out. By having limits that prevent overfishing, these MPAs ensure that fish can reproduce and maintain healthy populations. This enables people to fish year after year, maintaining their way of life. Georges Bank , off the coast of New England (a region in the northeast of the U.S.) and Nova Scotia, Canada, was once one of the world’s greatest fisheries. But it was heavily fished for centuries, and populations of cod , haddock ( Melanogrammus aeglefinus ), flounder , and other species plummeted . After several MPAs were established by the United States and Canada, fish populations began to increase , and fishing improved. Levels of Protection Different MPAs provide different levels of protection. The strictest type of MPA allows no human entry at all. This not only prevents people from fishing, but also prevents people from disturbing delicate habitats. No-entry MPAs tend to be small and are often used for research . Parts of the vast Seaflower Reserve off Colombia’s Caribbean coast ban all human access. Other MPAs are less strict. In a no-take MPA, fishing and collecting are not allowed, but people can travel through the area and use it for recreation, such as snorkeling or swimming . All of Laughing Bird Caye National Park , which protects a small island 18 kilometers (11 miles) off the coast of Belize in Central America, is a no-take MPA. In multiple-use MPAs , the area is protected, but some fishing is allowed. Many national parks, such as Acadia National Park in the U.S. state of Maine, are multiple-use MPAs. Many MPAs are divided up into different zones . In some zones, fishing is allowed, while in other zones, people might not be permitted entry at all. Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the site of one of the world’s largest MPAs. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is divided into zones. Some of these zones allow recreational and commercial fishing . About one-third of the park has strict rules against fishing. Since these zones were put in place, the numbers of fish and corals have increased. Establishing an MPA National governments establish many MPAs. State, local, and tribal governments also establish MPAs. For example, the U.S. state of California has established the Point Lobos State Marine Reserve to protect underwater canyons and kelp forests . The Quileute Tribe of the U.S. state of Washington works with the federal government to keep the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary a sustainable fishery . Sometimes, national governments work together to establish an MPA that crosses borders . Italy, France, and Monaco together established the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals. It covers parts of sea that is in the nations’ own territories as well as international waters. At some MPAs, the level of protection remains the same year-round. At others, people are only barred from an area during certain seasons, often when vital species are breeding . For example, in the Irish Sea, fishing is controlled during cod spawning season, when the fish produce and fertilize eggs. This helps conserve the cod population.

The world's largest MPA is Phoenix Islands Protected Area. Part of the tiny nation of Kiribati, it lies in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area stretches across 410,500 square kilometers (158,453 square miles), an area the size of the U.S. state of California. The MPA includes eight small islands, two coral reef systems, and large swaths of deep ocean. Only a handful of people live on the islands, so it is a nearly pristine habitat for teeming populations of birds, fish, and other marine life. The world's smallest MPA is Echo Bay Marine Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada. It covers just 0.4 hectares (1 acre) and is a popular spot for ocean kayakers to pull ashore.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 53 U.S. MPAs are in the proximity of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Center for American Progress

How Marine Protected Areas Help Fisheries and Ocean Ecosystems

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With U.S. fisheries reeling from climate change and other threats, marine protected areas—especially highly and fully protected MPAs—are powerful tools to rebuild, protect, and sustain fisheries and ocean ecosystems.

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The 123 million people who live near the U.S. coasts and the 3 million Americans who depend on the ocean for their livelihood are front-row witnesses to dire and unprecedented change. 1 As a result of climate change, unusually warm waters are killing kelp along the West Coast as well as coral off of Hawaii, fueling toxic algae blooms in Florida and California, and threatening the nation’s $212 billion commercial and recreational fishing industries. 2 Wastewater and agricultural runoff, along with plastic pollution, are also major dangers; in 2017, scientists measured the ocean’s largest dead zone ever—an area the size of New Jersey—in the Gulf of Mexico, 3 and plastic pollution is so prevalent that it has been found in the most remote areas of the deep sea. 4

One of the most powerful and effective methods for protecting fisheries resources and ocean life is the marine protected area.

While the United States currently has a strong fisheries management system, the legacy of past overfishing, combined with climate change and habitat destruction, has severely threatened some of the nation’s most iconic fisheries. For example, rapidly warming waters in the Gulf of Maine have impeded efforts to rebuild the New England cod fishery. 5 In other fisheries, such as that of the Alaskan red king crab, climate-related changes have led to overfishing concerns as target species cluster in the few cold areas that remain. 6 And in Florida, toxic algae linked to coastal pollution and climate change killed so many snook and redfish in 2018 that officials banned their harvest. 7

One of the most powerful and effective methods for protecting fisheries resources and ocean life is the marine protected area (MPA)—a clearly defined geographic space managed for long-term conservation. 8 While some Pacific island nations have historically closed areas to manage their coastal fisheries, 9 in the 20th century, European and American nations relied on inaccessibility, remoteness, rocky terrain, or the deepness of areas to serve as de facto MPAs. 10 As technology improved and these areas became more accessible to fisheries, the need to protect specific areas and habitats in order to protect fish populations became apparent.

For the past decade, the global community has set ocean protection goals through multiple international mechanisms—mainly Aichi Target 11 in the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 14—with the aim of increasing overall global ocean protection. 11 Each country has the autonomy to designate and manage MPAs within their exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which refers to the area of ocean extending 200 nautical miles from shore in which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over the natural resources. To coordinate this effort and track progress toward national and global goals, countries have taken steps to set common standards. The recently released MPA Guide—a collaboration between the U.N. Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre and other organizations—outlines the stages of MPA establishment, the varying levels of MPA protection, and the expected conservation outcomes based on an MPA’s level of protection. 12

This issue brief provides an overview of the specific associated benefits that MPAs offer fisheries; discusses when the use of MPAs is and is not appropriate; and details ways to mitigate the economic challenges that MPAs can pose to commercial fishermen. The brief also presents a new analysis of U.S. MPAs—which examines their geographic distribution, size, and level of protection—to make the case for an expansion of the MPA system in the United States.

Spectrum of protections

Similar to land-based protected areas, MPAs exist along a spectrum of protection. The following four classifications—recently described by marine ecologist Kirsten Grorud-Colvert and her colleagues—delineate MPAs based on their level of biodiversity protection and extractive activities. 13

Minimally protected

Minimally protected MPAs are designated as “protected” but may either allow extensive extraction or lack enforcement, implementation, and active management. While minimally protected MPAs do provide some conservation benefit to an area, it is relatively minimal, as the name implies. 14 For example, Pirajubaé, a marine reserve south of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is considered minimally protected because, post-designation, there have been ongoing and poorly regulated government-approved infrastructure projects that have damaged the area’s coastal habitats and fishing grounds, dramatically undermining the MPA’s effectiveness. 15

Lightly protected

Lightly protected MPAs prohibit some extractive activities—such as oil and gas drilling and seabed mining—but allow commercial fishing in some form. The level of protection for this type of MPA is most similar to that of fisheries management areas, which may protect certain species and habitats but still allows for commercial fishing activity. For example, 160 of the 161 MPAs on the Pacific coast of Canada allow some commercial fishing within their borders but restrict particular types of fishing gear. 16 Similarly, most of the United States’ 16 national marine sanctuaries allow some commercial fishing regulated under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act 17 but prohibit oil and gas drilling. 18 For example, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Washington state prohibits oil and gas drilling, seabed mining, and the U.S. Department of Defense from conducting bombing activities within the area. 19 Another example is the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, where vessel traffic is heavily regulated and oil and gas drilling is prohibited. 20

Highly protected and fully protected

Both highly protected and fully protected MPAs prohibit any industrial extractive activities within their boundaries, including oil and gas drilling, seabed mining, and commercial fishing. Highly protected MPAs, including the United States’ marine national monuments, allow for light extractive activities such as subsistence and recreational fishing. The type and amount of activity allowed is specified in each monument’s establishing proclamations, such as the protections put forth in the Papahānaumokuākea proclamation. 21 (see text box below)

Fully protected MPAs—such as the Stewarts Point State Marine Reserve in Northern California 22 and the network of marine reserves in Oregon 23 —prohibit all extractive activity.

The United States’ five marine national monuments were designated by presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the president to set aside public areas for protection. 24

The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, initially designated by President George W. Bush in 2006 as the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, was the first MPA to use the term “marine national monument” and is currently the world’s third-largest MPA. 25 Each monument’s designation proclamation determines its level of protection from extractive activities, and there is nothing inherent to the designation process that requires certain levels of protection. However, the five existing marine monuments all prohibit commercial extractive activities, which means they are classified as highly protected MPAs.

Protected ocean waters in the United States

Only 4.8 percent of the global ocean is protected by MPAs, with 2 percent of that total designated as highly or fully protected areas. 26 In comparison, more than 15 percent of the world’s land area has some form of management or protection. 27

Percentage of U.S. exclusive economic zone waters covered by marine protected areas

Approximately 26 percent of the United States’ EEZ is protected, of which 23 percent is at least highly protected. 28 However, 97 percent of that area is located in the remote U.S. western Pacific Ocean territory. The 2016 designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument added some representation on the East Coast, but this area accounts for only slightly more than 1 percent of the entire U.S. Atlantic Ocean territory. 29 While the United States is a global leader in MPA designation, there remains a vast potential for future MPA designations to be spread out among representative habitats and bioregions within U.S. waters.

Fisheries management cannot provide all the conservation benefits of highly and fully protected MPAs

In the United States, there has been considerable debate over the usefulness of highly and fully protected MPAs for fisheries management. 30 Essentially, the question has been whether MPAs are necessary given the United States’ existing fisheries management system. 31 This current system has been successful in implementing fishery management plans and rebuilding previously depleted fishery stocks, and these plans play a significant role in ensuring that commercially important species are harvested at sustainable levels. 32

However, the science is clear: Even the best fisheries management cannot provide all the benefits of a highly or fully protected MPA. 33 As ocean conservation scientist Ellen Pikitch summarized in a 2016 report, highly and fully protected MPAs serve a fundamentally different, and complementary, purpose than fisheries management:

MPAs conserve biodiversity, enhance resilience, enhance fisheries, and act as an insurance policy if other types of fisheries management do not work. They protect and restore endangered species and ecosystems. They are sites for education and research. They can attract tourists and provide alternative livelihoods for communities. The reserves are capable of bringing back life and restoring key processes like water purification and carbon capture. In addition, they play a significant role in protecting and bringing back the large old fish that have always been the engines of reproduction and population replenishment. Animals that live longer are capable of producing more progeny. Reserves can bring them back; conventional fisheries management will not. The more larval and adult offspring there are, the farther afield they will travel, promoting fisheries and building resilience over large areas. 34

A healthy ocean with robust, economically viable fisheries requires all the available management tools. Just as MPAs cannot replace fisheries management, fisheries management cannot replace MPAs. Both systems must be used in concert to achieve sustainable and economically viable ocean protections.

How highly to fully protected MPAs benefit fisheries

By providing a refuge for targeted species, a highly to fully protected MPA gives animals inside its boundaries time to grow larger than their counterparts outside of the area. For example, larger fish generally produce more offspring, and this surplus of fish will exit the MPA and help to stock fisheries. 35 This effect is termed “spillover” and can be thought of in similar terms to interest on a savings account: The highly or fully protected MPA protects the “principal,” and the fish exiting the MPA are the “interest.” One study of spillover from more than a dozen highly and fully protected MPAs found that, in almost all cases, the fisheries outside the MPAs were likely unsustainable without the spillover from populations inside highly or fully protected MPAs. 36

The beneficial effects of MPAs to fisheries can be best quantified by measuring biomass, numerical density, and organism size. 37

Biomass is the total mass of living biological organisms in a given area at a given time. Abundant evidence has shown that highly and fully protected MPAs promote large, rapid, and sustained buildup of biomass of commercially important species within their boundaries. 38 One meta-analysis of scientific studies showed that biomass of whole fish groups in highly and fully protected MPAs is, on average, six to seven times greater than in adjacent unprotected areas and three to four times greater than in lightly protected MPAs. 39

Numerical density

Numerical density refers to the number of individuals of a targeted species in a given area. As the number of individuals increases, more and more will exit the protected area and be available to fisheries. One study showed that the density of organisms within highly or fully protected MPAs is more than 1 1/2 times greater than the density in unprotected areas nearby. 40 In Tsitsikamma National Park in South Africa, one of the oldest fully protected MPAs in the world, the density of commercially important fish is around 42 times higher than in the nearby fishing grounds. 41 And on Georges Bank in the Gulf of Maine, after just five years of protection, the densities of legal-sized scallops reached nine to 14 times those of scallops in fished areas. 42

Another commonly used measure of density is the catch per unit effort (CPUE), which is the total catch divided by the total amount of effort used to harvest the catch. 43 This is considered to be an indirect measure of fisheries stock abundance. For example, if CPUE is decreasing, fishermen are spending more time catching fewer fish, indicating that stocks are declining. If CPUE is increasing, fishermen are catching more fish in less time, indicating a recovering or healthy stock. One large global study found that fished areas near highly to fully protected MPAs experienced a fourfold increase in CPUE. 44 Another study found that the CPUE of fish traps outside a network of fully protected MPAs in waters off the island nation of St. Lucia increased between 46 and 90 percent within five years of designation. 45

Organism size

Highly and fully protected MPAs increase average organism size by 28 percent. 46 Organism size is important to fisheries sustainability, since in many commercially important species, larger females release eggs that are larger, more numerous, and higher quality than those of smaller females. 47 This result does not scale with mass, meaning that one large female reproduces more than two smaller females with the same total body mass. For example, in the commercially important Atlantic cod fishery, a single, large 30-kilogram (kg) female produces more eggs than 28 small 2-kg females combined. Moreover, the batch of eggs of the large 30-kg female has 37 times more energy content, which increases the survival of the newly hatched fish. 48

In another example, the New Zealand snapper fishery saw the benefit of 14 times more fish in fully protected MPAs than in fished areas, making egg production an estimated 18 times higher than outside of the protected area. 49 Similarly, in Edmonds Underwater Park, a fully protected area in the state of Washington, lingcod produced 20 times more eggs and copper rockfish produced 100 times more eggs than their species counterparts outside of the marine park boundary. 50

Highly and fully protected MPAs increase average organism size by 28 percent.

For commercially important species, the benefits of a highly to fully protected MPA can mean the difference between a collapsed local fishery and a rapidly recovered one. In Baja California, the local economy is primarily supported by fishing for pink abalone. However, when warming waters and reduced oxygen killed most of the species in 2010, the larger, highly reproductive abalone that survived in the nearby fully protected MPA replenished the abalone stocks for the entire region. 51

To sum up, highly to fully protected areas provide significant biological benefits, fostering an environment that allows for the growth of larger females that produce more offspring. In turn, these offspring grow up into larger fish, some of which will move away from home and replenish the supply of fish in the surrounding waters. The fish in these replenished waters will attract fishermen who will catch them, thus reaping the benefits of a sustainable supply of larger fish. It is a beneficial circle that starts with a highly or fully protected MPA.

Highly to fully protected MPAs increase biodiversity, which fosters resilience

Highly to fully protected MPAs have been shown to foster greater biodiversity, which is helpful to overall ecosystem health and productivity. In a meta-analysis looking at the role of biodivcersity loss on ecosystem services, the data showed that post-designation, levels of biodiversity of fully protected MPAs increased by an average of 23 percent. At the same time, areas adjacent to the MPAs were associated with large increases in fisheries productivity. 52

Research has found that as ocean waters warm and become more acidic, biodiversity can also provide a buffer to climate change.

Biodiversity has also been shown to enhance the ability of ecosystems to withstand a stress event and recover relatively quickly afterwards. 53 In one example, a fully protected area in New Zealand was able to go from a sea urchin barren—an ecosystem destroyed by overgrazing from an unchecked and exploding population of sea urchins—back to its original kelp forest ecosystem within 12 years of its designation. 54 The shelter offered by the fully protected MPA allowed for an increase in the abundance of sea urchin-eating fish, resulting in an overall increase in local biodiversity.

Research has found that as ocean waters warm and become more acidic, biodiversity can also provide a buffer to climate change. One study that synthesized global, fishery-independent data to test the importance of biodiversity to fish production showed that more diverse fish communities also had a greater resilience to temperature variations. 55

How highly to fully protected MPAs benefit coastal economies

Economic studies of the value of highly and fully protected MPAs show considerable returns on investment. One comprehensive economic study found that the total value of protecting these areas included benefits to neighboring fisheries, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, establishment of storm buffers, profitable eco-tourism, new MPA management jobs, and gains from new scientific discoveries. 56 Essentially, each $1 invested returns approximately $20 in benefits. This economic study also found that fisheries in medium- to high-decline gained the most from spillover from highly and fully protected MPAs. Another study that looked at the combined economic benefits of MPAs found that both tourism and neighboring fishery profits increased within as little as five years after the reserve was established. 57

Highly to fully protected MPAs are not a panacea

MPAs—even those that are highly to fully protected—are not a panacea for ocean health or even improved fisheries. They cannot, for instance, protect against invasive species, pollution, or climate change other than through increased ecosystem resilience. 58 For that reason, MPAs are most effective when they are designed and scaled properly to solve a specific goal.

In order to provide benefits to fisheries, successful MPAs across the globe share all or most of the following five key features:

• They are highly to fully protected.
• They are well-enforced.
• They have been established for 10 years or more.
• They are large in size.
• They are isolated by deep water and sand. 59

MPAs that meet only one or two of these criteria do not provide significant fisheries benefits. Strong fisheries management outside of the highly to fully protected MPA is also necessary to accrue the maximum possible benefits for fisheries and conservation. 60

When all of these criteria are met and properly implemented, MPAs provide exceptional environmental and economic benefits and are one of the most effective overall methods of sustainable fisheries and marine conservation.

How to engage and support coastal communities and ocean conservation over the long term

Recognize and mitigate the short-term costs to fisheries.

MPA supporters tend to focus on the potential long-term benefits to the environment and the economy. However, the short-term costs experienced most acutely by the fishing community are very real and can lead to income losses. 61 One way to gain support from the fishing community is to acknowledge the role of short-term costs; work to mitigate the transitional economic risks associated with highly to fully protected MPAs; and make clear that the long-term viability of fishing is not threatened by designations.

The fishing community often views the long-term benefits of MPAs as high risk since there is no guarantee that the increased productivity associated with MPAs will provide a benefit within a time frame that allows them to remain in business. Moreover, there is little that can be done to prevent some of the major negative effects that can, and often do, result from a temporary loss of income—for example, housing troubles and insurance issues. 62 However, studies have shown that post-designation, income can equal and even surpass pre-designation income within as little as five years. 63

One approach to alleviating short-term income loss is benefit-sharing between stakeholders. In this method, user fees from nonextractive groups such as tourists provide a source of stabilizing income to local fishermen during the first seasons of designation. 64 For example, in Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park in the Philippines, the benefit share was financed through user fees from divers and dive operators, as well as through grant payments from outside donors. 65 These fees included compensation payments to local fishermen for lost access to the fully protected MPA. Another crucial component of this model is that local fishermen were granted exclusive access rights to fish in the areas outside the MPA in exchange for their support in enforcing the fully protected MPA. 66

Other risk-mitigating finance mechanisms can come in the form of short-term government subsidies, low-interest loans, or buyouts. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, as local MPAs were becoming more prevalent, the various states and commonwealths in Australia implemented programs to alleviate lost income due to displaced fishing efforts. Some programs amended fisheries regulations to include compensation programs; others offered voluntary fishing license buyouts; and a few developed complicated structural adjustment programs, which were a combination of financial assistance packages that targeted short-term losses and license buyouts with longer-term effects. 67

Understand the problems with buyouts and compensation programs

Fishermen are not the only stakeholders in these areas. Seafood processors, equipment suppliers, and related industries within the community may also experience negative outcomes from a designation. As with fishery disaster designation, potential compensation programs must therefore consider how large a social safety net should be cast. The opportunity costs of not designating MPAs should also be considered—for example, how much income the tourism industry is forgoing or the impact that the closure could have on the local indigenous community. The designation process should therefore include all stakeholders and determine the most fair methods for meeting their needs and addressing their concerns. 68

Take time to build trust

Including local communities and fishermen in the designation process is key. As discussed above, the fishing community was part of the success of Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park in the Philippines. After a few years of faltering success post-designation, stakeholder workshops and listening sessions were able to move past grievances and begin to lay the groundwork for eventual buy-in. 69

In the case of the highly protected Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, designation was done with significant support from indigenous and local communities as well as the government. 70 After substantial public input, the monument was designed to allow for subsistence, recreational, and traditional indigenous fishing as long as the activity was determined to be sustainable. Although it was not unanimous, many small-boat fishermen in the islands were supportive of this level of protection. 71 However, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WESPAC), which largely represents the interests of the Pacific longline fleet, was not supportive, despite minimal levels of commercial fishing in the monument area. 72 There was also pushback from the Washington, D.C.-based recreational fishing lobby. 73 The successful designation of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument shows that strong local support can overcome resistance from nonlocal interests.

However, local process has its limits. The designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was a huge step forward for protection in the New England region, which up until that point, had no highly to fully protected areas. Following numerous meetings with representatives of the commercial fishing industry, designators incorporated fishermen’s suggestions, including the removal of the Cashes Ledge area from monument status consideration; the division of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts area into two separate components rather than a single unit; a 60 percent decrease in the size of the Canyon Unit compared with the original proposal; and an unprecedented seven-year phase-in of regulations for lobstermen and crabbers. 74 Yet despite these significant changes, there was and continues to be considerable pushback from the local fishing community, with one fishing association even questioning the legality of the monument in court. 75

Even with strong scientific evidence for the benefits for MPAs and integrated consultation, there will likely always be those who cannot be persuaded to support MPA designations. In the Pacific, WESPAC has argued that vessels have lost tens of millions of dollars as a result of these protected areas, but since the tuna fleets have consistently maximized their fishing capacity and caught all the fish they are allowed to catch each year, the data do not support these claims. 76 In the case of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, there is deep-rooted, long-standing animosity between federal regulators and commercial fishing interests in New England, so any kind of government action—MPA designation or otherwise—would most likely lack the fishing community’s support.

A path forward: Protecting key ecosystems across the lower 48

Current status of mpas in the united states.

The Center for American Progress analyzed the size, location, level of protection, and designation type for all MPAs in the United States. (see Methodology for more details) After assigning each MPA to geographic regions that approximately correspond to the areas managed by the eight regional fisheries management councils—regional stakeholder councils that assist the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in fisheries management—CAP found that the U.S. MPA system is dominated by a few very large, very remote monuments. 77 Ninety-seven percent of all MPA area is in the West Pacific, and 99 percent of all highly to fully protected MPA area is located in this remote area. (see Figure 1a and 1b)

Only five of the eight major regions have any areas at all that are highly to fully protected. Three areas—the Gulf of Mexico, the mid-Atlantic, and the North Pacific—have no MPAs that are highly to fully protected. The combined area of highly to fully protected MPAs outside of the West Pacific accounts for less than 1 percent of the total. Moreover, 84 percent of that tiny percentage is located in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

Overall, U.S. MPA size is relatively small. (see Figures 2a and 2b) Seventy percent of all U.S. MPAs are less than 100 square kilometers in area—smaller than the city of Washington, D.C. Moreover, only 27 out of 822 U.S. MPAs, or 3 percent, are greater than 1,000 square kilometers in area. The Pacific coast—the area off of California, Oregon, and Washington—has the greatest number of total MPAs as well as the greatest number of highly to fully protected MPAs. (see Figures 3a and 3b) The Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic also have relatively high numbers of MPAs, though most are lightly protected.

Marine national monuments account for 96 percent of all MPA area in the United States and more than 99 percent of highly to fully protected U.S. MPA area. (see Figures 4a and 4b) State and territorial MPAs are the most numerous, as there are 639, but they tend to be lightly protected and their total area adds up to less than 1 percent of the whole. Other federal mechanisms such as national marine sanctuaries and national wildlife refuges account for the rest of the areas under protection.

Moving forward

Currently, in the United States, two major MPA policy approaches have found success and been proven to provide benefits to fishermen and other local stakeholder communities. One approach involves large, relatively remote marine national monuments that are mostly highly to fully protected. If highly to fully protected MPAs are well-designed, they will provide environmental and economic benefits. 78 However, large MPAs can encompass entire ecosystems and interdependent habitats. 79 Large MPAs are also better able to resist large-scale disturbances such as those caused by climate change, as well as other man-made and environmental disturbances. Such resiliency can help local fisheries bounce back more rapidly after these events. 80

Another successful approach includes multiuse networks of small MPAs. The most prominent example is the network of MPAs in California state waters created by the state’s Marine Life Protection Act. 81 California’s MPAs are much smaller in size than the marine national monuments, but they are notable for their nearness to shore, the significant involvement of the fishing community, and the spectrum of protections that they offer. The West Coast fishing community is beginning to see the benefits of this approach, with heavily overfished rockfish stocks rebuilding faster than anticipated. 82

As climate change drives unprecedented change across the ocean, MPAs are one of the United States’ most powerful tools to protect each region’s unique biodiversity, fisheries, and way of life. The international community has been calling for individual countries to protect 30 percent of each marine habitat within their territorial waters by 2030. 83 CAP strongly recommends that the United States move beyond a goal of 30 percent total and toward one that would protect 30 percent of each major geographic region. Given the benefits of highly to fully protected MPAs and the fact that the vast majority of U.S. waters outside the remote Pacific have relatively minimal protection, the focus should be on ensuring that all key regions and ecosystems receive designations that are more representative of the unique and important habitats within U.S. waters.

Margaret Cooney is the campaign manager for Ocean Policy at the Center for American Progress. Miriam Goldstein is the managing director for Energy and Environment and the director of Ocean Policy at the Center. Emma Shapiro is a former intern for Public Lands and Ocean Policy at the Center.

The authors would like to thank Dr. Jane Lubchenco, a university distinguished professor and marine studies adviser to the president at Oregon State University; Amy Kenney, from the National Ocean Protection Coalition; Angelo O’Connor Villagomez, a senior officer for Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy at the Pew Charitable Trusts ; Alexandra Carter, a policy analyst for Ocean Policy at the Center; Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Center; Beth Pike, database manager for the Atlas of Marine Protection at the Marine Conservation Institute; and Carl Chancellor, Christian Rodriguez, Steve Bonitatibus, and Chester Hawkins on CAP’s production team for their contributions.

Methodology

The authors’ analysis of the current state of MPAs in the United States is based on data provided both by the MPAtlas database and directly by the Marine Conservation Institute (MCI). 84 These data include a list of every MPA in the United States and each MPA’s calculated marine area, its highly to fully protected status, and the area that is highly to fully protected within the MPA in cases where it differs from the MPA’s overall calculated marine area.

Using maps of the eight U.S. regional fishery management councils and the MPAtlas tool, the authors assigned each MPA to the most appropriate regional council area. 85 They also assigned each MPA to a designation type: “monument,” “sanctuary,” “state or territory,” and “other federal.” The “other federal” category includes federal designation types such as national wildlife refuges (NWRs) and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System.

For several of the Pacific monuments, NWRs are nested within various areas of the monuments’ units. These include two of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument’s three units, Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. In the base data, these are counted as two separate MPAs, but with fully overlapping areas. To avoid double-counting protected areas, the authors used the calculated marine area for the monuments only. While these nested NWRs are excluded from area calculations, they are included in numerical counts. Because the NWR areas were designated independently from the monuments, they are classified as “other federal” in the authors’ designation-type analysis.

For the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the MCI had separated the associated area protected as NWRs from the area protected by the monument, so these are also separated in the authors’ analysis.

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• Benjamin S. Halpern, “The Impact of Marine Reserves: Do Reserves Work and Does Reserve Size Matter?”, Ecological Applications 13 (1) (2003): S117–S137, available at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d85a/38449c445ccd224a47c88b5092ab3ea53984.pdf .
• Edgar and others, “Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features.”
• O’Leary and others, “Addressing Criticisms of Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas.”
• California Legislative Information, “Chapter 10.5. Marine Life Protection Act (2850 – 2863) (Chapter 10.5 added by Stats. 1999, Ch. 1015, Sec. 1.),” available at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=FGC&division=3.&title=&part=&chapter=10.5.&article= (last accessed May 2019).
• Lois Sahagun, “Rockfish make a remarkable recovery off California coast, prompting federal officials to raise catch limits,” Los Angeles Times , December 11, 2018, available at https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-rockfish-restrictions-lifted-20181211-story.html .
• World Commission on Protected Areas, “Applying IUCN’s Global Conservation Standards to Marine Protected Areas (MPA).”
• MPAtlas.org, “Global MPAs.”
• U.S. Regional Fishery Management Council, “Conserving and Managing the Fisheries of the United States.”

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10 Ways You Can Help Save The Oceans

Oceans cover more than 70% of the planet and are home to important species and ecosystems that we rely on for food, livelihoods, climate regulation and more. but the oceans need our help..

Saving the oceans can sometimes feel like an overwhelming task, but if we all pitch in, we can make a big difference. While there are a variety of lifestyle choices that, when adopted, can help the oceans, here are our top 10 ways you can help save the oceans! 

10 WAYS YOU CAN HELP SAVE THE OCEANS 

Demand plastic-free alternatives .

The oceans face a massive and growing threat from plastics. An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic pollution flood our marine environment from land-based sources every year — that’s roughly equivalent to dumping two garbage trucks full of plastic into our oceans every minute. And, instead of degrading, plastic breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces that are swallowed by everything from fish and sea turtles to seals and seabirds, many of which are endangered! 

We must urge government leaders to pass policies that reduce plastic production and require companies to phase out unnecessary single-use plastic products and ramp up reusable and refillable options. You can add your name to call on world leaders to tackle plastic pollution . 

REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT 

The climate crisis threatens the health of our oceans and the marine wildlife that call them home. Sea levels are rising, and we are experiencing more extreme weather globally, and carbon dioxide – a known greenhouse gas – is making our oceans more acidic. This acidity contributes to the loss of corals, or coral bleaching.  

The climate crisis is something we know how to combat – by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Join Oceana by pledging to combat climate change and reduce your carbon footprint. 

EAT RESPONSIBLY-SOURCED SEAFOOD 

Choose seafood that is healthy for you and the oceans from well-managed, wild fisheries. Wild seafood is a renewable resource that requires minimal freshwater to produce and emits less carbon dioxide than land-based proteins like beef. We know it’s hard to know what fish are okay to eat, which is why you can turn to these helpful resources: 

• Print or download a guide from Seafood Watch to help you make sustainable choices when you buy or order seafood. 
• Refer to these top chefs for sustainable seafood recipes . 
• Consider adding small, oily fish that are packed with protein to your diet. 

VOTE ON OCEAN ISSUES 

Electing public officials that support smart ocean policies can help us protect marine life and our oceans. Do your research on candidates and make an informed decision, then exercise your right (and responsibility) to vote. And don’t let Election Day be the last time they hear from you. Follow up with your candidates and elected officials regularly to remind them of policies you care about. 

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND LAWMAKERS

Your representatives and lawmakers might not know how important these issues are that face our oceans. But they will if you tell them. It’s up to constituents like you to make lawmakers aware of the crises facing marine life and our oceans. Don’t be shy! Take action with Oceana to directly contact your government representatives and lawmakers.    

TEACH KIDS ABOUT THE OCEANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Around the world, research has shown that children have limited knowledge about the oceans because marine science topics are absent in most school curricula. The oceans are critical to life on Earth. Understanding that at an early age can help kids form connections with the seas and understand the reasons why it’s so important to protect them. Check out the Kids Environmental Lesson Plans (KELP) from Sailors for the Sea and dive into Oceana’s Marine Life Encyclopedia to learn about our oceans and all animals that inhabit them.  

AVOID OCEAN-HARMING PRODUCTS

There are many products directly linked to harming endangered or threatened species, unsustainable fishing methods and pollution. For example, avoid cosmetics that contain shark squalene, jewelry made of coral or sea turtle shell, souvenir shells of conchs, nautiluses and other animals, and single-use plastics like straws and water bottles that can end up in our oceans. These products can threaten important species and ecosystems.  

LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND

As beach crowds increase, so does the amount of trash left behind or blown away. Don’t let your day outside contribute to the destruction of our oceans. Remember to leave nothing behind but your footprints — collect and properly dispose of your trash.  

SHARE YOUR OCEAN EFFORTS WITH FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND COWORKERS

Tell people what’s going on with the world’s oceans and what they can do to join you in making a difference. Spread the word about petitions, share fun facts, and join the conversation with us on Facebook , Instagram , X (formerly Twitter), TikTok , and YouTube . 

BECOME AN OCEAN ADVOCATE 

More than 1 million members and activists in over 200 countries have already joined Oceana – the largest international organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. Together, we’ve won over 300 victories and protected nearly 4 million square miles (10 million square kilometers) of ocean. But there’s more to be done!  As a Wavemaker, your support is critical to our victories and protecting the world’s oceans and we can’t do it without you.    

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Marine Biodiversity Conservation: Principles and Challenges for Managing Human Impacts

Related Papers

sachin sharma

Marine biodiversity is an integral part of human life cycle. As oceans covers 72% surface of our planate, it has its direct impact on human lives. Today in order to fulfil the need of resources, people started exploiting the marine diversity. At international level there is race among nations to explore and exploit the resourceful regions of oceans. Further numbers of development projects are badly affecting the biodiversity of sea, as it is causing a serious threat to flora and fauna. Recently there are number of cases of oil splits in oceans, affecting marine biodiversity. Despite of various international and national laws, conventions’, relating to protection of marine biodiversity, the marine environment is getting degrading day by day. Internationally, we have various conventions including United Nation Convention on Law of Seas (UNCLOS), which defines the rights and duties of nations in respect to their use of Oceans, and it also provide the guidelines for business, marine resource management and environment protection. Present day significance of the convention can be concluded from the fact that recently, till January 2015, 166 counties and European Union are the parties to the convention. But in order to fulfil their self interests, countries usually forget the promises and obligations made under such Conventions. Through this paper author will try to analyse concept of marine Biodiversity and its related issues. The few important questions for analysis includes, is there is any way to protect and safeguard our marine resources and how it is connecting with human life? Is it rationale to achieve ‘development at the cost of marine resources? The insight will be drawn from various philosophical theories and International Law.

Fisheries Research

Cymie Payne

Roser Puig Marcó

This insight offers a brief up date of the recent debates on issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) - in particular on marine genetic resources. The debates were held at the United Nations General Assembly and mainly within the Ad Hoc Open-ended Informal Working Group to study issues relating to the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (Working Group). 1 It also presents the steps set out by the General Assembly towards developing a possible international instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Conservation Biology

John A Cigliano , Megan Draheim

The ocean provides food, economic activity, and cultural value for a large proportion of humanity. Our knowledge of marine ecosystems lags behind that of terrestrial ecosystems, limiting effective protection of marine resources. We describe the outcome of 2 workshops in 2011 and 2012 to establish a list of important questions, which, if answered, would substantially improve our ability to conserve and manage the world’s marine resources. Participants included individuals from academia, government, and nongovernment organizations with broad experience across disciplines, marine ecosystems, and countries that vary in levels of development. Contributors from the fields of science, conservation, industry, and government submitted questions to our workshops, which we distilled into a list of priority research questions. Through this process, we identified 71 key questions. We grouped these into 8 subject categories, each pertaining to a broad component of marine conservation: fisheries, climate change, other anthropogenic threats, ecosystems, marine citizenship, policy, societal and cultural considerations, and scientific enterprise. Our questions address many issues that are specific to marine conservation, and will serve as a road map to funders and researchers to develop programs that can greatly benefit marine conservation.

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries

Narissa Bax

Chris Parsons

In July 2017, a Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) of United Nations member states agreed to take the next step toward negotiating an international instrument to govern the marine biodiversity of the high seas. This was an important milestone in a process with roots in sustainable development and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the landmark treaty frequently described as “the constitution for the oceans.” The PrepCom will send a report and recommendations to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) for consideration in Fall 2017 for a new implementing agreement to UNCLOS to address the living marine environment in areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. This Insight offers an overview of the process leading to such negotiations. It then reviews the issues refined by the PrepCom for consideration by an intergovernmental conference on conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ).

QUEST JOURNALS

Oceans are essential ecosystem of Earth's ecology since it covers more than 70 percent of the planet's surface and offers important nutrients for human survival. The oceans or the high seas outside of any country's jurisdictional waters, is home to rich biodiversity and valuable resources. The long-term survival of marine life and ecosystems is in serious jeopardy due to overfishing, pollution, climate change, and other human activities. The long-term viability of marine life and the preservation of maritime resources is a matter to be investigated. By evaluating relevant literature and collecting data from numerous sources, this study investigates the current condition of high seas conservation, the challenges of conserving high seas biodiversity, and the effectiveness of existing conservation initiatives. The research stresses the importance of better governance, stricter enforcement of conservation measures, and the creation of marine protected areas as part of a comprehensive and integrated plan for protecting the oceans. Insights into the future of conservation on the oceans beyond national jurisdiction and recommendations for improving current efforts are provided in this study. The establishment of a legally obligatory instrument for the protection and equitable utilisation of natural resources in regions outside national borders having the conservation programs, and enhanced scientific understanding and data exchange are the need of the present day globalized world. There is a need for addressing the issues influencing the protection of the high seas and supporting the maintainable governance of ocean flora and fauna, conserving the long-term health and vitality of the ocean and its biodiversity and safeguarding the welfare of future generations.

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Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems (2001)

Chapter: executive summary, executive summary.

Declining yields in many fisheries and the decay of treasured marine habitats such as coral reefs have heightened interest in establishing a comprehensive system of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the United States. MPAs, areas designated for special protection to enhance the management of marine resources, show promise as components of an ecosystem-based approach for conserving the ocean's living assets. However, MPA proposals often raise significant controversy, especially the provisions for marine reserves—zones within an MPA where removal or disturbance of resources is prohibited, sometimes referred to as closed or “no-take” areas. Some of the opposition to MPAs lies in resistance to “fencing the sea,” reflecting a long tradition of open access. This opposition continues despite compelling empirical evidence and strong theoretical arguments indicating the value of using reserves as a tool to improve fisheries management, to preserve habitat and biodiversity, and to enhance the esthetic and recreational value of marine areas. The controversy persists because we lack a scientific consensus on the optimal design and use of reserves and we have only limited experience in determining the costs and benefits relative to more conventional management approaches. The current decline in the health of the ocean's living resources, an indication of the inadequacy of conventional approaches, and the increasing level of threat have made it more urgent to evaluate how MPAs and reserves can be employed in the United States to solve some of the pressing problems in marine management.

RECOGNIZING THE LIMITS

The ocean inspires awe; its vast expanse of water spans most of the earth's surface and fills the deep basins between continents. From the surface, the ocean appears uniform and limitless, seemingly too immense to feel the impacts of human activities. These perceptions led to the philosophy expressed by Hugo Grotius, a Dutchman in the 1600s, that the seas could not be harmed by human deeds and therefore needed no protection. His thinking established the principle of “freedom of the seas,” a concept that continues to influence ocean policy despite clear evidence that human impacts such as overfishing, habitat destruction, drainage of wetlands, and pollution disrupt marine ecosystems and threaten the long-term productivity of the seas.

The flaw in the reasoning expressed by Grotius has been uncovered by research on the biology, chemistry, geology, and physics of the ocean. The sea is not a uniform, limitless expanse, but a patchwork of habitats and water masses occurring at scales that render them vulnerable to disturbance and depletion. The patchiness of the ocean is well known by fishers who do not cast their nets randomly but seek out areas where fish are abundant. There has been an increase in technology and fishing capacity that has led to a corresponding increase in the number of overfished stocks. Destruction of fish habitat as the result of dredging, wetland drainage, pollution, and ocean mining also contributes to the depletion of valuable marine species. As human populations continue to grow, so too does the pressure on all natural resources, making it not only more difficult, but also more critical to achieve sustainability in the use of living marine resources. These concerns have stimulated interest in and debate about the value and utility of approaches to marine resource management that provide more spatially defined methods for protecting vulnerable ocean habitats and conserving marine species, especially marine reserves and protected areas. Based on evidence from existing marine area closures in both temperate and tropical regions, marine reserves and protected areas will be effective tools for addressing conservation needs as part of integrated coastal and marine area management.

MANAGING MARINE RESOURCES

Management of living marine resources presents numerous challenges. The conventional approach typically involves management on a species-by-species basis with efforts focused on understanding population-level dynamics. For example, most fisheries target one or a few species; hence, managers and researchers have concentrated their efforts on understanding the population dynamics and effects of fishing on a species-by-species basis. Although this approach seems less complex, it does not resolve the difficulties of either managing multiple stocks or accurately assessing the status of marine species. This is compounded by the relative inaccessibility of many ocean habitats, the prohibi-

tive expense of comprehensive surveys, and the complex dynamics and spatial heterogeneity of marine ecosystems. In addition, the species-specific approach may fail to address changes that affect productivity throughout the ecosystem. These changes may include natural fluctuations in ocean conditions (such as water temperature), nutrient over-enrichment from agricultural run-off and other types of pollution, habitat loss from coastal development and destructive fishing practices, bycatch of non-target species, and changes in the composition of biological communities after removal of either a predator or a prey species.

In addition to challenges presented by nature, management challenges arise from social, economic, and institutional structures. Regulatory agencies are charged with the difficult but important task of balancing the needs of current users with those of future users of the resource as well as the long-term interests of the general public. Regulatory actions intended to maintain productivity often affect the livelihoods of the users and the stability of coastal communities, generating pressure to continue unsustainable levels of resource use to avoid short-term economic dislocation. Finally, responsibility for regulating activities in marine areas, extending from estuarine watersheds to the deep ocean, is fragmented among a daunting number of local, state, federal, and international entities. This complexity in jurisdictional responsibility often places a major barrier to developing coordinated policies for managing ocean resources across political boundaries. Although the protected area concept, with its emphasis on management of spaces rather than species, is not new and has been used frequently on land, until recently there have been less support and few interagency efforts to institute protected areas as a major marine management measure. MPA-based approaches will shift the focus from agency-specific problem management to interagency cooperation for implementing marine policies that recognize the spatial heterogeneity of marine habitats and the need to preserve the structure of marine ecosystems.

To address these issues, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service requested that the National Research Council's Ocean Studies Board assemble a committee of experts to examine the utility of marine reserves and protected areas for conserving marine resources, including fisheries, habitat, and biological diversity. Although there are other, equally important goals, for MPAs, including recreation, tourism, education, and scientific inquiry, examination of these objectives was not part of this committee's specified statement of task and hence receives less emphasis in this report. The committee was directed to compare the benefits and costs of MPAs to more conventional management tools, explore the feasibility of implementation, and assess the scientific basis and adequacy of techniques for designing marine reserves and protected areas. This report presents the findings of the study and provides recommendations for the application of marine reserves and protected areas as a tool in marine area management.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Effective implementation of marine reserves and protected areas depends on participation by the community of stakeholders in developing the management plan. Federal and state agencies will need to provide resources, expertise, and coordination to integrate individual MPAs into the frame-works for coastal and marine resource management in order to meet goals established at the state, regional, national, or international level. The lead agency will need to first identify all stakeholders, both on- and off-site, and then utilize methods of communication appropriate for various user groups. Additionally, the needs and concerns of affected communities must be evaluated and considered when choosing sites for marine reserves and protected areas. Stakeholders should be encouraged to participate in the process by employing their expertise as well as considering their concerns. Systematic social and economic studies will be required to recognize stakeholder groups, to assess the potential economic impacts of the MPA, and to determine community attitudes and goals.

The task of designing MPAs should follow four sequential steps: (1) evaluate conservation needs at both local and regional levels, (2) define the objectives and goals for establishing MPAs, (3) describe the key biological and oceanic features of the region, and (4) identify and choose site(s) that have the highest potential for implementation.

1. Conservation Needs. Local and regional conservation needs depend on the types of resources, the intensity and nature of human uses, and the physical and biological characteristics of the habitats. Consequently, the first step in planning an MPA is the identification and mapping of habitat types and living marine resources.

2. Objectives and Goals. The second step is the establishment of specific management goals for the proposed MPA. In most cases, the MPA will have multiple objectives such as protection of representative habitats, conservation of rare species, fish stock restoration or enhancement, or safeguarding of historical sites, among others. Ranking and prioritizing these objectives may be guided by local conservation needs and/or regional goals for establishing a network of MPAs. Conflicting objectives may require negotiation, trade-offs, and consideration of social and economic impacts.

There are multiple goals for establishing MPAs, such as conserving biodiversity, improving fishery management, protecting ecosystem integrity, preserving cultural heritage, providing educational and recreational opportunities, and establishing sites for scientific research. However, the focus of this report is on conserving biodiversity and improving fishery management through the use of

MPAs and marine reserves. To promote biodiversity, the siting criteria for an MPA or reserve may include habitat representation and heterogeneity, species diversity, biogeographic representation, presence of vulnerable habitats or threatened species, and ecosystem functioning. To improve fishery management, site choice may depend on the locale of stocks that are overfished to provide insurance against stock collapse or to protect spawning and nursery habitat. Alternatively, a site may be selected to reduce bycatch of nontarget species or juveniles of exploited species.

3. Biological and Oceanic Features. Evaluating the suitability of potential sites under these criteria requires the collection and integration of information on the life histories of exploited or threatened species (e.g., location of spawning and nursery sites, dispersal patterns) and the oceanic features of the region. The latter may include water current and circulation patterns, identification of upwelling zones and other features associated with enhanced productivity, water quality (nutrient inputs, pollution, sedimentation, harmful algal blooms), and habitat maps.

4. Site Identification. Distilling the desired properties of an MPA into a zoning plan that specifies size and location of reserves requires matching the biological and oceanic properties to meet the specified objectives. Guidelines and general principles that can be applied to this task are described below.

Identifying Locations

Choice of sites for MPAs should be integrated into an overall plan for marine area management that optimizes the level of protection afforded to the marine ecosystem as a whole because the success of MPAs depends on the quality of management in the surrounding waters. In coastal areas specifically, MPAs will be most effective if sites are chosen in the broader context of coastal zone management, with MPAs serving as critical components of an overall conservation strategy. Management should emphasize spatially oriented conservation strategies that consider the heterogeneous distribution of resources and habitats. This may include selecting MPA sites based on the location of terrestrial protected areas. For example, locating an MPA adjacent to a national park may provide complementary protections for water quality, restoration of nursery habitat, and recovery of exploited species. Often a single MPA will be insufficient to meet the multiple needs of a region and it will be necessary to establish a network of MPAs and reserves, an array of sites chosen for their complementarity and ability to support each other based on connectivity. Connectivity refers to the capacity for one site to “seed” another location through the dispersal of either adults or larvae to ensure the persistence and maintenance of genetic diversity for the resident protected species.

Sites that meet the ecological and oceanographic criteria must also be evaluated with respect to the patterns of stakeholder use in those areas. Site identifi-

cation should maximize potential benefits, minimize socioeconomic conflicts to the extent practicable, and exclude areas where pollution or commercial development have caused problems so severe that they would override any protective benefit from the reserve and so intractable that the situation is unlikely to improve.

Determining Size

The optimal size of marine reserves and protected areas should be determined for each location by evaluating the conservation needs and goals, quality and amount of critical habitat, levels of resource use, efficacy of other management tools, and characteristics of the species or biological communities requiring protection. The boundaries of many MPAs, such as those in the National Marine Sanctuary Program, have been drawn based on specific topographic features, but deciding on the size of marine reserves (i.e., no-take zones) requires greater consideration of the biological features to meet specific management goals. In many cases, specific attributes of the locale (saltmarsh habitat, spawning and nursery grounds, special features such as coral reefs, seamounts, or hydrothermal vents) will determine the size of an effective reserve. In other cases, the dispersal patterns of species targeted for protection, as well as the level of exploitation, should be considered in deciding how much area to enclose within a reserve. Achieving the various marine management goals out-lined in this report will require establishing reserves in a much greater fraction of U.S. territorial waters than the current level of less than 1%. Proposals to designate 20% of the ocean as marine reserves have focused debate on how much closed area will be needed to conserve living marine resources. The 20% figure was originally derived, in part, from the value fishery managers once recommended for conservation of a fish stock's reproductive potential (i.e., the target spawning potential ratio). For sedentary species, protecting 20% of the population in reserves will help conserve the stock's reproductive capacity and may roughly correlate with 20% of that species' habitat. However, the optimal amount of reserve area required to meet a given management goal may be higher or lower depending on the characteristics of the location and its resident species, as described in Chapter 6 and summarized in Table 6.3 of this report. Size optimization generally will require adjustments to the original management plan based on reserve performance, as determined through research and monitoring. Hence, the first priority for implementing reserve sites should be to include valuable and vulnerable areas rather than to achieve a percentage goal for any given region.

Designating Zones and Designing Networks

Zoning should be used as a mechanism for designating sites within an MPA to provide the level of protection appropriate for each management

goal. In many instances, multiple management goals will be included in an MPA plan and zoning can be used to accomplish some of these goals. These zones may include “ecological reserves” to protect biodiversity and provide un-disturbed areas for research, “fishery reserves” to restore and protect fish stocks, and “habitat restoration areas” to facilitate recovery of damaged seabeds. Frequently, an MPA is established initially to protect a site from threats associated with large-scale activities such as gravel mining, oil drilling, and dredge spoil disposal. Under these MPA-wide restrictions, there is an opportunity to resolve other conflicting uses of marine resources through zoning of areas within the MPA. Networking to provide connectivity (see section “Identifying Locations” ) should be considered in both zoning and siting of MPAs to ensure long-term stability of the resident populations.

Monitoring and Research Needs

The performance of marine reserves should be evaluated through regular monitoring and periodic assessments to measure progress toward management goals and to facilitate refinements in the design and implementation of reserves. Marine reserves should be planned such that boundaries and regulations can be adapted to improve performance and meet changes in management goals. There are three tasks that should be included in a well-designed monitoring program: (1) assess management effectiveness; (2) measure long-term trends in ecosystem properties; and (3) evaluate economic impacts, community attitudes and involvement, and compliance.

Monitoring programs should track ecological and socioeconomic indicators for inputs to and outputs from the reserve at regular time intervals. Inputs might include water quality, sedimentation, immigration of adults and larvae of key species, number of visitors, and volunteer activities. Outputs might include emigration of adults and larvae of key species, changes in economic activity, and educational programs and materials. Within the reserve, monitoring efforts should assess habitat recovery and changes in species composition and abundance.

Research in marine reserves is required to further our understanding of how closed areas can be most effectively used in fisheries and marine resource management. Reserves present unique opportunities for research on the structure, functioning, and variability of marine ecosystems that will provide valuable information for improving the management of marine resources. Whenever possible, management actions should be planned to facilitate rigorous ex-

amination of the hypotheses concerning marine reserve design and implementation. Research in reserves could provide estimates for important parameters in fishery models such as natural mortality rates and dispersal properties of larval, juvenile, and adult fish. Other research programs could test marine reserve design principles such as connectivity or the effect of reserve size on recovery of exploited species. Modeling studies are needed both to generate hypotheses and to analyze outcomes for different reserve designs and applications.

Institutional Structures

Integration of management across the array of federal and state agencies will be needed to develop a national system of MPAs that effectively and efficiently conserves marine resources and provides equitable representation for the diversity of groups with interests in the sea. The recent executive order issued by the White House on May 26, 2000, initiates this process through its directive to NOAA (Department of Commerce) to establish a Marine Protected Area Center in cooperation with the Department of the Interior. The goal of the MPA Center shall be “to develop a framework for a national system of MPAs, and to provide Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and local governments with the information, technologies, and strategies to support the system.” Establishment of a national system of MPAs presents an opportunity

to improve regional coordination among marine management agencies;

to develop an inventory of existing MPA sites; and

to ensure adequate regulatory authority and funds for enforcement, research, and monitoring.

Effective enforcement of MPAs will be necessary to obtain cooperation from affected user groups and to realize the potential economic and ecological benefits. Also, coordination among agencies with different jurisdictions will improve the representation of on-site and off-site user groups so that the general public's cultural and conservation values, as well as commercial and recreational activities, receive consideration. Under current management approaches, these interests are often addressed by different agencies independently of each other and may result in short-term policies that are inconsistent with the nation's long-term goals.

What are the consequences of not developing a national system of marine reserves and protected areas? Are conventional management strategies sufficient to ensure that our descendents will enjoy the benefits of the diversity and abundance of ocean life? One purpose of this report is to compare conventional

management of marine resources with proposals to augment these management strategies with a system of protected areas. Although it may seem less disruptive to rely on the familiar, conventional management tools, there are costs associated with maintaining a status quo that does not meet conservation goals. Hence, our relative inexperience in using marine reserves to manage living resources should not serve as an argument against their use. Rather, it argues that implementation of reserves should be incremental and adaptive, through the design of areas that will not only conserve marine resources, but also will help us learn how to manage marine species more effectively. The dual realities that the earth's resources are limited and that demands made on marine resources are increasing, will require some compromise among users to secure greater benefits for the community as a whole. Properly designed and managed marine reserves and protected areas offer the potential for minimizing short-term sacrifice by current users of the sea and maximizing the long-term health and productivity of the marine environment.

Although the ocean-and the resources within-seem limitless, there is clear evidence that human impacts such as overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution disrupt marine ecosystems and threaten the long-term productivity of the seas. Declining yields in many fisheries and decay of treasured marine habitats, such as coral reefs, has heightened interest in establishing a comprehensive system of marine protected areas (MPAs)-areas designated for special protection to enhance the management of marine resources. Therefore, there is an urgent need to evaluate how MPAs can be employed in the United States and internationally as tools to support specific conservation needs of marine and coastal waters.

Marine Protected Areas compares conventional management of marine resources with proposals to augment these management strategies with a system of protected areas. The volume argues that implementation of MPAs should be incremental and adaptive, through the design of areas not only to conserve resources, but also to help us learn how to manage marine species more effectively.

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What Exactly is Marine Conservation Biology?

Learn the difference between marine biology and marine conservation biology—and what the scientists in each field tend to focus on.

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This blog was written by Dr. David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist and public science educator based in Washington, D.C. Renowned for his witty social media presence, he has written for the widely-read ocean science blog Southern Fried Science, and his science writing has appeared in publications including the Washington Post, Scientific American, Gizmodo and Scuba Diving Magazine. Follow along with him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and stay tuned for his future contributions to the Ocean Conservancy blog.

If you read my first blog for Ocean Conservancy, you may have noticed that I identified myself as a “marine conservation biologist.” While many people may know that a marine biologist is a scientist who studies organisms that live in the ocean, my introduction as a marine conservation biologist tends to inspire some questions from readers. For example: “What’s the difference between marine biology and marine conservation biology?” and “What exactly does a marine conservation biologist do?” Today, I’m here to answer these questions for you. Let’s dive in!

What is conservation biology?

I’ll start by referencing a powerful essay that was published in 1985, the year after I was born. The Endangered Species Act and the entire environmental movement in the United States were relatively new, with ideas on how to move forward actively discussed by passionate environmentalists and concerned scientists. Michael Soule , who died earlier this year, described conservation biology as an entirely new discipline of science. This type of biology was designed to be practical, focused, applied science that borrows methods and approaches from other closely related fields like ecology, biology and environmental science. By “applied,” I mean that we’re not just talking about learning new information about our natural world for the sake of knowledge. While that is, of course, incredibly important work (because there is so much more still to learn), we’re talking about something different here: using scientific approaches to answer specific questions with immediately obvious real-world implications.

In the case of the Endangered Species Act, for example, we’re of course focusing specifically on preventing the extinction of endangered species. With growing recognition of the threats facing the environment, it was no longer enough to just learn more about the ocean in general. It became more and more clear that it was necessary to learn specific information to try and help stop these problems. Essentially, conservation biology is the use of science to learn how to most effectively protect wildlife and wild places, and marine conservation biology is exactly that, but specifically centered around the ocean.

Marine biologists study living things in the ocean with the open-ended goal of learning more about them. Marine conservation biologists take a more applied and specific approach; for example, they ask not just “Where do sea turtles go?” but “Given that these sea turtles are endangered, what can a greater understanding of their habitat use and how it overlaps with potential threats tell us about how to protect them from threats so their population can recover?”

Marine conservation biology papers often dive much deeper into detail about a proposed policy change, as the goal of many studies is often to find out what needs to be done to solve a specific real-world problem. In marine conservation biology, while publishing a paper is often an important step, it’s not the end of the process—in order to protect our ocean and the wildlife and communities that depend on it, we need to then make sure that the public and decision-makers know there’s a problem in the first place. Then, we must work to pinpoint and communicate what we can do to solve it, either ourselves or by partnering with people or organizations that will communicate our key findings to leadership (or communities that influence those leaders).

What does a typical day look like for you as a marine conservation biologist?

As a marine conservation biologist, many of my days are pretty similar to those of my colleagues in “pure” marine biology, spending time on a research vessel collecting data or digging into academic databases, analyzing samples in a lab or writing up results for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. But unlike several of my colleagues, I also spend a lot of time publicizing and communicating about science, making sure that the right people know what was found, why it matters and what we need to do about it. While this isn’t technically part of some of my job descriptions and isn’t for everyone, I know it’s a vital step in turning scientific results into policy action. Rather than mostly working closely with scientists alone, I also work with environmental advocacy groups, science journalists and government decision-makers on a regular basis.

As you can see, a significant difference is who we frequently collaborate with. Most marine biologists, if asked, can easily name five other scientists in their field, but not necessarily many others in external fields and disciplines. Marine conservation biologists, on the other hand, tend to have colleagues much more diversified in their type of work, such as environmental advocates who advocate for issues related to what they study, journalists whose beat includes their area of expertise or government officials who make decisions that affect their study system.

Of course, it’s also important to note that the role of a marine conservation biologist is also notably different from that of an ocean conservation advocate, such as some of the fine folks who work for Ocean Conservancy. For some, their job is to directly lobby government officials for change, though conservation advocates also often have scientific training and may participate in scientific research projects, too. With that, many environmental non-profits like Ocean Conservancy do employ marine biologists, marine conservation biologists or both, as do academic institutions. In sum, both marine biologists and marine conservation biologists have important and diverse roles to play in a variety of fields!

When did you know you wanted to be a marine conservation biologist?

I’ll first note that I’ve known I wanted to be a marine biologist since I was a toddler. It was in college that I transitioned into the applied side of marine conservation biology as I learned more about the various threats facing the ocean and the core need for scientific data to solve some of these increasingly pressing problems. Today, I use scientific methods and approaches to understand specific threats to endangered species that live in our ocean and what solutions can be used to help protect them.

I’ll end by saying that there are so many paths to a career in the realm of ocean conservation, and my path is just one of them. I hope that this blog helps lift the curtain to show you the “behind the scenes” in the life of a conservation biologist and the type of work we do in the field of ocean conservation!

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Marine Conservation and Sustainability

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section " Sustainable Oceans ".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 18949

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Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that we put forward this Special Issue, “Marine Conservation and Sustainability”, in the context of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 about the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean, seas and marine resources.

The oceans provide living resources for food, such as fisheries and aquaculture, as well as for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and genetic products. They also provide oil, gas, mineral resources, and renewable energy from coastal to deep seabed. Importantly, they have been used as a platform for shipping and communications. Moreover, recreational uses gain more and more significance for the uses of the ocean. It is recognized that with use comes impact on the marine environment. The heightened emphasis is on the sustainable uses of oceans. Consensus has been reached that there should be trade-offs between conservation and sectoral interests. The challenge lies in how to strike such a balance.

Although quite a lot of international conventions and treaties in identifying and quantifying trade-offs between conservation and sectoral interests have been in place, management still faces complex challenges in implementation. Furthermore, there exist loopholes and gaps for the regime of the law of the sea. Admittedly, there is existing literature, including books and journal articles, that considers marine conservation and sustainability in many areas regulated by international law, environmental law and the law of the sea. New challenges arise with the emergence of new circumstances, such as the development of technology, ocean acidification, or climate change. This Special Issue attempts to discuss approaches dealing with new circumstances and filling the gaps, so as to attract more studies on this important topic in academia.

This Special Issue with an explicit policy focus and covers: international, regional and national marine policies; institutional arrangements for the management and regulation of marine and coastal activities, including fisheries, aquaculture, coastal management and shipping; conflict resolution; marine pollution and environment; conservation and use of marine resources. The purpose of the Special Issue is to highlight marine conservation and sustainability which will be fully reflected in a series of anticipated papers.

Prof. Dr. Guifang Julia Xue Dr. Xiangxin Xu Guest Editors

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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• marine pollution
• ocean acidification
• IUU fishing
• deep seabed mining
• capacity building
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• marine conservation planning approach
• governance of marine resource use

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The Ocean and Climate Change

Our ocean is changing. With 70 percent of the planet covered in water, the seas are important drivers of the global climate. Yet increasing greenhouse gases from human activities are altering the ocean before our eyes. NASA and its partners are on a mission to find out more.

The ocean is warming

Rising greenhouse gas concentrations not only warm the air, but the ocean, too. Research shows that around 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming is being absorbed by the ocean. Ocean heat has steadily risen since measurements began in 1955, breaking records in 2023 . All this added heat has led to more frequent and intense marine heat waves. The image visualizes sea surface temperature anomalies in August 2023. Warm colors (red, orange) show where the ocean was warmer than normal. Cool colors (blues) show where temperatures were cooler. The red swath in the Eastern Pacific was due to an El Niño event. El Niño is a climate phenomenon in the tropical Pacific that results in warmer than normal sea surface temperatures leading to weather impacts across the planet. Credit: NASA

Sea levels are rising

Global sea levels have risen more than 4 inches (101 millimeters) since measurements began in 1992, increasing coastal flooding in some places. As ocean water warms, it expands and takes up more space. The added heat in the air and ocean is also melting ice sheets and glaciers, which adds freshwater to the ocean and further raises sea levels. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission , launched in 2022, and Sentinel 6 Michael Freilich , launched in 2020, are providing unparalleled views of sea level rise on top of decades of data from other missions. The video shows a 21-day average of sea surface height anomalies highlighting ocean eddies and currents as imaged by the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. The red and orange colors indicate where the sea surface was higher than normal and the blues are where it was lower than normal. Credit: NAS

Explore Earth's Vital Signs

The ocean is getting a little greener

Recent research found that over the past 20 years, the tropical ocean turned greener. Ocean color reflects the life that is found in it. Green colors often correspond to phytoplankton, microscopic plant-like organisms that form the center of the ocean's food web. Observations of changes in phytoplankton populations due to climate change are a key part of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission , which launched in 2024.

Ocean warming is altering hurricanes

Hurricanes need warm water to form and strengthen. Recent research points to warmer ocean temperatures as a key factor causing more storms to rapidly intensify. One way to detect rapid intensification before it happens may be through a change in lightning around the eye of the storm. Plus, higher sea levels worsen storm surge flooding when a storm travels over a coastline. NOAA’s GOES-East satellite captures the rapid intensification of Hurricane Lee on Sept. 7, 2023.  Credit: NASA/NOAA

Ocean acidification and heating are altering marine ecosystems

Carbon dioxide and heat are both absorbed by the ocean as greenhouse gas levels increase. When carbon dioxide is dissolved in the ocean, the water becomes more acidic. This makes it harder for corals and some other marine life to grow shells and protect themselves. Marine heat waves are complicating the matter by making it too warm for many corals to survive. Satellites are providing important data to scientists measuring such changes in ocean environments. When corals are stressed from changes in their environment, they turn white, or "bleach." Sometimes the coral is able to recover, but other times the bleaching event leads to its death. This image shows the decay of a healthy coral reef to a reef between 2014 and 2015 in the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. Credit: NOAA/ XL Catlin Seaview Survey

Sea ice is thinning and shrinking

Melting sea ice does not affect sea levels, but it does impact global temperatures. Sea ice is light-colored and reflects sunlight back into space; open water is darker and absorbs more sunlight. Warming ocean waters melt sea ice from below, and warmer air helps melt it from above. As ice cover thins and shrinks, more ocean is exposed and less sunlight is reflected, further warming the water and air. Satellites help monitor changes in sea ice which is an area of research for upcoming missions in the Earth Systems Observatory . A photograph of Arctic sea ice breaking up as seen during an overhead flight during NASA’s Operation IceBridge in March 2011. Credit: NASA

Explore the Earth Systems Observatory

El Niño can add to the heat

El Niño occurs when the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than normal. This periodic ocean warming can add to the long-term global warming that has already accumulated, making a hot year even hotter. That’s because ocean temperatures are major drivers of global temperatures, as seen in 2023 . A visualization showing sea surface height anomalies in the Pacific Ocean in June 2023 based on satellite data. The red and orange colors show a higher-than-normal sea surface height. The blue areas were lower than normal. Credit: NASA

Read More About 2023's Record Heat

Ocean circulation may be changing

Ocean currents are vital transporters of heat around the planet. As the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt, the excess fresh water running into the ocean could disrupt the balance of temperature and salinity that drive deep ocean currents. NASA satellite mission s are monitoring the ocean for changes in heat transport as glaciers continue to melt and the ocean warms. Clouds trace out islands in the Caribbean Sea in this photo taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station.  Credit: NASA

Read More About Ocean Circulation

Key Satellites and Missions

Aqua is collecting data about Earth's water cycle.

Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO)

GRACE-FO is tracking Earth’s water movement across the planet.

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is measuring the height of the ocean.

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT)

SWOT is providing the first global survey of Earth’s surface water and measuring how it is changing over time.

Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE)

PACE is measuring key variables related to cloud formation, particles and pollutants in the air, and microscopic, floating marine life.

Earth System Observatory

NASA’s Earth System Observatory is a series of satellites working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to atmosphere.

Latest News and Research

Nasa mission flies over arctic to study sea ice melt causes.

How NASA Spotted El Niño Changing the Saltiness of Coastal Waters

Vanishing corals: nasa data helps track coral reefs.

Is the Wilkins Ice Shelf Weakening?

Key ocean and climate resources.

NASA Sea Level Change

NASA’s Sea Level Change portal provides key data, stories, and tools related to NASA’s sea level research.

NASA Earthdata - Ocean

NASA’s Earthdata provides open access to ocean and other datasets produced by NASA satellites and its partners.

Estimating Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) Consortium

ECCO combines state-of-the-art ocean circulation models with global ocean datasets to estimate ocean circulation and its role in the climate.

State of the Ocean on NASA Worldview

NASA Worldview State of the Ocean visualizes real data from satellites to show sea surface temperatures and anomalies, and chlorophyll on a daily basis.

Ocean Color

Ocean Color provides key data, stories, and tools related to NASA’s Ocean Biology Processing Group’s research.

Climate Kids

The ocean covers about 70% of Earth’s surface. So, it’s not surprising that it plays a large part in Earth’s environment. As Earth warms, water in the ocean soaks up energy (heat) and distributes it more evenly across the planet. The ocean also absorbs carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. The additional heat and carbon dioxide in the ocean can change the environment for the many plants and animals that live there.

Five ways to improve marine conservation around Britain

Associate Fellow, Marine Biological Association

Disclosure statement

Keith Hiscock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Marine life in the seas around Britain is diverse: from the colourful anemones in rockpools to huge basking sharks. Our oceans are important socially and economically – they provide us with healthy food and other resources, they benefit our mental health and physical wellbeing, and offer endless recreational opportunities, from fishing to watersports. Global UN targets to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 involve establishing more marine protected areas.

The conservation of biodiversity depends on an understanding of how an environment works, what might threaten its habitats and species and how best to restore what has been damaged. As a marine scientist who has worked in this field for more than five decades, I worry that, although marine conservation around Britain has shown some success, many of the tools that are in use today are irrelevant, broken, blunt or missing.

Here are five ways to improve marine biodiversity conservation around Britain:

1. Reconsider connectivity

Marine conservation advisors often refer to connectivity distances - ensuring that species will be able to move between or recolonise locations, especially separate marine protected areas . On land, wildlife corridors are areas such as hedgerows that link habitats and species together. However, the sea is a fluid medium through which marine animals can travel. Species that migrate (including in their young stages as larvae) can swim or drift through the water. So isolated reef habitats, for example, don’t have to be physically joined as they might need to be on land. Connectivity considerations are, however, important where there are separate breeding, feeding or resting areas for a species, or where potential for recovery from damage or loss is being considered.

Connectivity does not need to be prioritised as highly as it does on land – accepting this will save time and avoid inappropriate design of marine protected areas as a network . Letting go of the concept of networks could increase the designation of locations where threatened species and habitats occur.

2. Rethink viability

Viability, in this instance, refers to the ability of a marine species to live, grow and reproduce in a marine protected area. The size of a protected area will vary according to context so a set minimum size isn’t always transferable to all species or habitats. For example, anemones or corals attached to a small reef rely on the water column for nutrients and only need that area protected whereas fish that are moving around might need a larger foraging territory.

Poor use of the knowledge that we already have about how marine creatures survive and thrive has led to minimum size limits of marine protected areas being set – but sometimes smaller areas would actually be viable and worthwhile. For example, Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel is a successful no-take zone (an area where no fishing is permitted) but at only 4km in length, it doesn’t meet the 5km minimum size requirement to be classed as an English highly protected marine area with the strictest possible protection. So better use of scientific knowledge is needed to adapt conservation measures according to the needs of the specific species and habitats being protected.

3. Assess threats more accurately

Government advisers and licensing authorities need reference lists of species and habitats that are rare, scarce, valued or sensitive to pressures brought about by human activities.

One human activity may pose a serious threat to one marine species but not another. Assessing the degree of threat – the amount of risk posed to marine wildlife by something like dredging or trawling – needs to be based on the latest scientific evidence and the sort of systematic approach developed by the Marine Life Information Network database.

Most (60%) habitats in the north-east Atlantic fail to be considered for protection from human activities because of a lack of data on population decline, geographical range or rarity of associated species.

Rarity is a useful consideration but the catalogue of nationally rare and scarce species was last published in 1996. Since then, there have been range extensions of north-east Atlantic species to Britain (such as the ringneck blenny) and species new to science have been described.

Differences in the life histories of species also need to be taken into account when considering degree of threat and more species and habitats assessed for sensitivity or irreplaceability . Animals with contrasting life cycles need different responses. Some larvae are short-lived and fast growing, others are long-lived and slow growing, while some disperse widely. These variations need to be considered.

Issues of data deficiency were greatly overcome via the Nationally Important Marine Features initiative and a list first defined in 2003 – this initiative needs to be resurrected and updated regularly.

4. Reduce the need for licensing

Several scientists I have spoken to agree that excessive bureaucracy, by the Marine Management Organisation in particular, often involves complicated and time-consuming licensing procedures that may stifle scientific studies that inform conservation. My own application to observe and photograph seahorses took 102 days to process. Marine conservation projects need more guidance and less licensing.

5. Improve management

Marine Protected Areas are frequently seen as just lines on a map without management regimes. Each one needs a clear management plan that identifies all of the species and habitats that need protection in that location. Some approaches have recently been pursued and are promising: the whole site approach considers the integrity of a site as a whole, not just designated features, while Highly Protected Marine Areas prohibit activities that are extractive (mainly fishing) and destructive (such as dredging), allowing only non-damaging levels of other activities such as recreational watersports.

It’s time to throw out tools that do not work, sharpen the blunt ones, reinstate abandoned but effective ones and create new tools. Lists, databases and websites need to be constantly updated with information that’s easily understood – even by non-scientists. Ultimately, more consistent monitoring of the state of our seas underpins marine conservation success.

• Conservation
• Marine conservation
• Marine protected areas
• Marine biodiversity

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Dynamic marine spatial planning for conservation and fisheries benefits

• Vigo, Maria
• Hermoso, Virgilio
• Navarro, Joan
• Sala-Coromina, Joan
• Company, Joan B.
• Giakoumi, Sylvaine

The increasing global demand for marine resources raises concerns about sustainable resource management and biodiversity conservation. Spatial closures, such as marine protected areas, can be valuable tools for maintaining and restoring exploited populations. When these spatial closures adopt a dynamic nature being adapted to the changing environment, they can effectively account for factors such as shifting species distributions, which enhances their potential to achieve ecological and socio‑economic objectives. Here, we adapted a decision‑support tool (the software Marxan), typically used for selecting static and permanent areas, to produce management recommendations that integrate permanent and temporal closures to fisheries. Our aim was to compare the outputs of a static network of permanent no‑take reserves with four other dynamic scenarios, including permanent and temporal closures that account for seasonal variations in the populations of species. All scenarios prioritized sites for the conservation of one of the most valuable European fishing stocks, the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus). Additionally, we considered 12 other commercially exploited species captured by the Norway lobster fishery. The assessed outputs included retained biomass, area extent, closure type (permanent and seasonal) and opportunity costs within each scenario. We observed that all dynamic scenarios required fewer management areas permanently closed than the static scenario. This resulted in a lower opportunity cost for fisheries but also a higher capacity for biodiversity conservation. Therefore, complementing permanent with temporal closures could enhance biodiversity conservation and fisheries management. The novel dynamic planning method presented here could be applicable to other species, ecosystems and socio‑economic contexts.

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• Protecting more of our marine ecosystems together, for future generations

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Today, the Government of Canada, the Government of British Columbia, and 17 First Nations are announcing the signing and launch of the Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative. Building on many years of collaborative planning efforts, the Great Bear Sea PFP initiative creates a co-governance structure that aims to protect and conserve marine wildlife and habitats, advance ongoing Marine Protected Area (MPA) management and stewardship over the long-term, and create thousands of new jobs that will contribute to a sustainable coastal economy.

The Indigenous-led Great Bear Sea PFP initiative will bring $335 million in new investments to the area known as the Northern Shelf Bioregion and the Great Bear Sea. Contributions include $200 million from the Government of Canada, $60 million from the Province of British Columbia, and $75 million from philanthropic organizations in Canada and around the world. These investments will be leveraged with additional private revenue sources over time to support community-led economic development and diversification, long-term funding for Indigenous Guardian programs, and stewardship and management, including in MPAs.

For many years, First Nations have worked in partnership with the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia, with the involvement of stakeholders from industry sectors, as well as communities and local governments, to propose a design to guide the implementation of a MPA Network in the Great Bear Sea region, announced last year as the  Northern Shelf Bioregion MPA Network Action Plan . The Great Bear Sea PFP initiative will support First Nations’ capacity through the next stages of planning and implementation of the MPA Network, as well as ongoing research, monitoring, and collaborative management with the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia.

The Great Bear Sea, also known as the Northern Shelf Bioregion, encompasses some of the most ecologically productive cold-water marine regions in the world. It includes globally significant populations of fish, whales, corals, seabirds, kelp forests, and other plant and animal species. The MPA Network will advance conservation efforts that protect and enhance culture, biodiversity, and thriving coastal communities for generations to come.

The MPA Network is expected to add an estimated 14,000 square kilometres of new marine protected areas to the 16,000 square kilometres of existing protected areas in the Great Bear Sea. Together, existing and new protected areas will encompass approximately 30 per cent of the Great Bear Sea. Specific designations and management plans for each MPA will be developed in consultation with First Nations, industry stakeholders, and the public.

“Indigenous Peoples have been the stewards and caretakers of Canada’s vast lands and waters since time immemorial. Today’s announcement is an important step in our governments’ efforts to collaborate on and advance Indigenous-led projects that will protect the health of our marine ecosystems for future generations. We will continue to work together with Indigenous and coastal communities from coast to coast to coast to ensure Canada’s marine and coastal areas remain healthy, clean, and safe.” The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

“Canada is proud to be part of this historic Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence initiative. More than ever, our government is committed to supporting Indigenous-led marine conservation initiatives that protect our shared coasts and oceans. We owe such concrete actions to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.” The Hon. Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

“The signing of the Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence initiative marks a historic step in protecting nature in Canada. The investments announced today provide a lifeline to the thousands of species inhabiting the Northern Shelf Bioregion, one of the most ecologically productive cold-water marine regions in the world. Our government launched the largest conservation campaign in Canada’s history, with the goal of protecting 30 per cent of lands and waters in Canada by 2030. From the start, we have turned to Indigenous partners to lead this work, as we acknowledge their traditional role as stewards of the lands and waters and their best positioning to restore healthy ecosystems. We want to protect these waters not just for our children, but for our grandchildren and every generation after that.” The Hon. Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

“People in British Columbia share a deep connection to our coastal waters. They are a source of beauty, food, and economic opportunities. Through sustainable conservation financing, we will help secure the future of our marine ecosystems, fisheries, and coastal communities.” The Hon. David Eby, Premier of British Columbia

“We are partnering to take bold steps to protect our marine environment for generations to come. It’s a day that makes us all proud. Working alongside First Nations, the traditional stewards of these lands and waters, in true collaboration, is the only way we can meet our goals of protecting 30 per cent of British Columbia’s lands and waters by 2030.” The Hon. George Heyman, British Columbia’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy

“The creation of the Marine Protected Area Network in the Northern Shelf Bioregion, also known as the Great Bear Sea, will be the first of its kind in Canada. It is the product of a made-in-British Columbia collaborative approach that brings together Indigenous knowledge, cutting-edge science, and input from industry stakeholders to protect this precious marine area while growing our economy.” The Hon. Nathan Cullen, British Columbia’s Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship

“This ground-breaking initiative, led by 17 First Nations, launches a new era of collaborative governance in marine conservation, stewardship, and Marine Protected Areas. It represents a beacon of hope for the future ‒ a future where ongoing management and stewardship are not just aspirations, but realities. Together we have forged a path where prosperous communities and stewardship go hand in hand, where economic growth is synonymous with environmental stewardship.” Chief Marilyn Slett, President of Coastal First Nations

“Today, we celebrate the results of First Nations, government, industry, stakeholders, and community members all working together to develop solutions that work for people and for nature. Our shared commitment to a healthy coast is what feeds our families today and will continue to sustain our communities, cultures, and economies, resulting in a better future for British Columbians and the world.” Dallas Smith, President of Na̲nwak̲olas Council

“With today’s announcement, First Nations are extending a successful model of collaborative stewardship, backed by durable conservation financing, from the rainforest to the sea. We look forward to continuing to work closely with First Nations, supporting them to invest in their community prosperity and marine stewardship programs which, in turn, will strengthen coastal communities and economies.” Eddy Adra, Chief Executive Officer of Coast Funds

Quick Facts

• Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) provides multi-partner investments and sustainable financing for large-scale conservation and sustainable development projects. These initiatives bring together Indigenous organizations, governments, and the philanthropic community to identify shared goals for protecting nature and ultimately halting biodiversity loss while advancing community well-being and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
• In recent years, the Government of Canada has made historic investments in Indigenous-led conservation projects, including through initiatives like the Indigenous Guardians program .
• In 2022, during COP15 in Montréal, Quebec, the federal government pledged to deliver up to $800 million in support of up to four Indigenous-led PFP initiatives, including the Great Bear Sea PFP.
• Grounded in science, Indigenous knowledge, and local perspectives, Canada is committed to working with partners across the country to conserve 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030.
• The approximately 30,000 square kilometres of the existing and proposed protected areas in the MPA Network is close in size to Vancouver Island.
• The 17 First Nations participating in the Great Bear Sea PFP are the Haida Nation, Gitga’at First Nation, Gitxaała Nation, Haisla Nation, Kitselas First Nation, Kitsumkalum Band, Metlakatla First Nation, Heiltsuk Nation, Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation, Nuxalk Nation, Wuikinuxv Nation, Da’naxda’xw-Awaetlala Nation, K’omoks First Nation, Kwiakah First Nation, Mamalilikulla First Nation, Tlowitsis Nation, and Wei Wai Kum First Nation.
• In 2023, the Government of British Columbia  announced a $60-million contribution to the Great Bear Sea PFP and the Marine Plan Partnership (MaPP) to help protect vital coastal ecosystems, create new jobs, and advance sustainable fisheries and economic opportunities in the Great Bear Sea, in partnership with First Nations and donors.
• Coast Funds is an Indigenous-led conservation finance organization established in 2007 to partner with First Nations in achieving their goals for conservation, stewardship, and conservation-based economic development. Coast Funds is the fund administrator for the Great Bear Sea PFP.
• Since 2007, investments by Coast Funds from the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements have created more than 1,250 new jobs and 120 new businesses in the region.  Learn more .
• The Great Bear Sea, also known as the Northern Shelf Bioregion, includes 102,000 square kilometres of culturally and environmentally significant ocean.
• Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) play a critical role in preserving and enhancing biodiversity and ecological integrity of marine ecosystems. MPA Networks are collections of individual MPAs that operate co-operatively and fulfill ecological and economic goals more effectively than individual MPAs.
• In 2023, leaders from 15 First Nations  joined the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia to jointly endorse an MPA Network Action Plan in the Great Bear Sea at the Fifth International Marine Protected Area Congress (IMPAC5).
• Once the MPA Network Action Plan is fully implemented, the MPA Network is expected to cover 30 per cent of the Great Bear Sea, including new protected areas and potential enhancements to existing MPAs.
• A core component and priority of the Great Bear Sea MPA Network is the creation of a 7,800 square kilometres National Marine Conservation Area Reserve (NMCAR) on the Central Coast of British Columbia. An NMCAR would protect marine ecosystems and biodiversity as well as culturally important values and features, which support the well-being of Indigenous Peoples, coastal communities, and a diverse range of marine sectors.
• The Wuikinuxv, Heiltsuk, Nuxalk, Kitasoo Xai’xais, Gitga’at, and Gitxaała First Nations, the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia have concluded a feasibility assessment for a Central Coast NMCAR, and the partners will now begin transitioning into establishment agreement negotiations consistent with the PFP closing agreement.

Related Product

• Backgrounder: Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence  

Associated Links

• Our Great Bear Sea
• Coastal First Nations
• Na̲nwak̲olas Council
• Coast Funds
• MPA Network
• Indigenous Guardians
• British Columbia’s Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship  
• Protecting more nature in partnership with Indigenous Peoples

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Divers become conservationists as corals bleach all over the world

A diver glides over an expanse of bone-white coral branches, recording the fish that dart between the ghostly arms extending from the sea floor off the Thai island of Koh Tao.

After a two-week course in Koh Tao, the 14-year-old can identify coral types, carry out reef restoration, and help scientific research on coral health by recording the color and tone of outcroppings at dive sites.

"It's just something that I can do that will have a good consequence for the environment," Nannalin, who has been diving since she was 12, said after a series of dives.

"I want to help the reef."

And she is not alone.

The Professional Association of Diving Instructors — better known as PADI, one of the world's leading dive training organizations — says conservation certifications jumped over 6% globally from 2021 to 2023.

This year, it is launching a major shark and ray census, harnessing its network of divers to collect data that will shape protection policies.

On Koh Tao, Black Turtle Dive offers courses on everything from how to properly "dive against debris" — collecting marine plastic or stranded fishing nets — to coral restoration techniques.

"There's an increased awareness," said Steve Minks, a certified conservation instructor at Black Turtle.

"There's a lot of bleaching going on, and there's a lot of concern about the marine environment."

Coral polyps are animals that depend on algae to provide most of their food. These algae also generally give the reef its color.

But when the sea is too warm, the polyps expel the algae.

The reef turns white, and the coral begins to starve.

Coral bleaching has been recorded in more than 60 countries since early 2023, threatening reefs that are key to ocean biodiversity and support fishing and tourism globally.

The death spiral is everywhere in the waters of the Gulf of Thailand around Koh Tao.

Worst affected are branching species that grow quickly but are also less resilient.

If water temperatures come down, they will have a chance at recovery.

But for now, their spectral stems are even visible from the surface, glimmering through the aquamarine water.

"I was not ready for that much bleaching, it's quite an impact," admits instructor Sandra Rubio.

The 28-year-old says bleaching and other marine degradation are driving divers to take her conservation courses.

"People want to start learning because they see these kinds of changes," she said.

"And even if they don't really understand why, they know it's not good."

She walks students through how to identify species, including soft coral.

Wave at it, she explains, mimicking wiggling a hand in the water, and wait to see if it "waves back."

The skills taught at Black Turtle and other dive shops are not simply theoretical.

Artificial coral reefs are dotted around Koh Tao, actively rebuilding marine habitats.

And Nannalin's data on coral health is part of Coral Watch — a global citizen science project that has produced numerous research papers.

"What we're doing is collecting data for scientists so they can actually work with governments and authorities," explained Minks.

On a sunny afternoon on Koh Tao, a boat carries a starfish-shaped rebar structure designed by schoolchildren out to sea, where it will become Global Reef's latest coral restoration project.

Since it was founded two years ago, Global Reef has transplanted around 2,000 coral colonies, with a survival rate of about 75%, said Gavin Miller, the group's scientific program director.

"It's not really going to maybe save coral reefs globally ... but what it does do is have a very, very large impact locally," he said.

"We have snappers returning. We have resident puffer fish."

Global Reef also hosts interns who are training artificial intelligence programs to identify fish in 360-degree videos for reef health surveys, and collaborates regularly with the dive school next door.

And they are studying the surprising resilience of some local coral to persistently high temperatures.

"These might be sort of refuges for coral," explained Miller.

This year's bleaching has left many marine enthusiasts despondent, but for conservation divers on Koh Tao, it is also a call to arms.

"In the previous generations, we didn't have this research and education that we have now," said Nannalin.

"I think people my age should make the most of it and try their best to reverse the things that have already been done."

The work also helps Rubio balance the sadness she feels at the changes below the water.

"It's not like we are going to change things from one day to another, but we are doing our best, and that is the best feeling," she said.

"I'm working every day to do something good for the environment and for the reef that I love."

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Synergy's Photo, Video and Essay Contest 2024

Under the two categories, the winning entries were:

Fitness and well-being at sea

2O Dinesh Chandran Prasannakumari

Wiper Milbert E. Baste

Behind the scenes.

OS Ryan Paulo De La Cruz

DC Gagan Rahangdale

Tales of the sea, dc stoymon johnson, gs ajith veenavilas venugopal, seafarer skills showcase, 2o harsimranjeet singh, tr. eto shibil aliyakott.

This year’s essay themes were: - The Blue Economy - Trade Allied to Conservation - Seafarers and the Digital Dilemma: Balancing Technology with Human Engagement - Unified Governance - A Solution, or a Pipe Dream? The shortlisted entries totalled precisely 100, providing the judging panel with a lengthy and challenging task. Each category was evaluated separately, and the winning and runner-up texts will appear here under a "Read more" button soon. The entries, spanning a wide range of seafarers and vessels, were filled with extensive research, original thought, innovative analysis and impactful phrases. The winning entries for each theme are as follows:

The Blue Economy - Trade Allied to Conservation:

3E Muhammad Saiful Islam

AB Shubham Jain

Seafarers and the digital dilemma: balancing technology with human engagement.

3O Rohit Sehgal

ETO Jai Bhagwan

Unified governance - a solution, or a pipe dream.

3O Rahul Pathak

AB Andrew Somera

Diversity and Inclusion

Corporate Responsibility

Sustainability

Ship Management 2.0

Commercial Management

Technical Management

Crew Management

Information Technology

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