Might marine protected areas for mobile megafauna suit their proponents more than the animals? MPAs for magefauna or people?

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

No doubt about it, conservation is difficult and marine conservation especially so. It is a pursuit frequently characterized by competing interests especially the schism between those seeking to exploit resources (sustainably or otherwise) and those pursuing less tangible goals like biodiversity preservation or concepts of wilderness (Salm et al., 2000; Harwood, 2010). These quests often spawn polarized arguments fuelled by inevitably scant, equivocal or uncertain information. Furthermore, unless a species is brought back from destruction or is extirpated, conservation can also be a battle without clear end. Consequently there is often frustration from slow progress or deadlock and an inevitable hunger for fresh approaches. Could it be that these issues are behind the current fashion for discrete spatial designations such as marine protected areas (MPAs), marine reserves, no-take zones and other variants of a widely applied terrestrial success story (Allison et al., 1998)? Certainly in recent years there have been frequent announcements of new protected areas (large or small, single or so called networked) ranging from voluntary community-led initiatives to statutory national or international designations such as the US Marine Reserves, European SACs and even ocean-scale sanctuaries (Hoyt, 2005; Roff, 2014).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3-8
Number of pages5
JournalAquatic Conservation-Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
Volume26
Issue number1
Early online date22 Jan 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2016

Keywords

  • marine protected areas
  • cetaceans
  • pinnipeds
  • seabirds
  • spatial management

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Might marine protected areas for mobile megafauna suit their proponents more than the animals? MPAs for magefauna or people?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this