Features

Adapting to change

Marine Protected Areas

Words by Emily Darling

Cover image

Photo by Thomas Peschak | National Geographic Creative

Currents, oceanographic fronts and eddies swirl around the north-western coast of Madagascar, pushing ocean waters through an intricate pattern of islands, shallow bays and deep channels. As an established hotspot of biodiversity in the Western Indian Ocean, Madagascar’s coral reefs are home to the second highest number of reef-building corals and fish species in the world. Rolling backward into the water, scientists plunge into the country’s first community-led marine protected areas, where schools of colourful fishes dart into the safety of fields of delicate table corals.

In 1998, an El Niño event and marine heat wave led to widespread coral bleaching here in north-western Madagascar and around the world, killing about one-sixth of the planet’s corals. Today, the reefs off Madagascar’s north-western coast have made a remarkable recovery. They are protected not only by laws for marine protection, but also potentially by the ocean itself, as upwelling from the deep Mozambique Channel brings cooler water to heat-sensitive corals.

This means that the reefs of north-western Madagascar may be a sanctuary area for coral that escapes the worst impacts of climate change – in other words, a climate refuge. They may also give us a glimpse into some stories of hope for future marine protected areas in a rapidly changing world.

Since the late 1960s, marine protected areas have been an important strategy for ocean conservation and ecosystem-based fisheries management. Today they face a number of threats: the warming and acidification of the oceans, the emerging development of underwater oil and gas exploitation, illegal fishing and the rising demand for shark fins and manta ray gill plates, to name a few. Thousands of species of whales, sharks, rays and fish remain largely unprotected; a recent study found that 97% of marine species have less than 10% of their range represented in a marine protected area.

Cover image

Photo by Thomas Peschak | National Geographic Creative

A diver swims over poached abalone shells in Cape Town's Table Mountain National Park in South Africa.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

Overall, marine protected areas – especially no-take marine reserves – work for biodiversity within their borders, but they face an uncertain future. What features of future marine protected areas are likely to contribute to their continued effectiveness and longevity? As nations move to meet Aichi targets and Sustainable Development Goals for 10% of ocean and coastal protection, adapting to change can be an important consideration for future marine protected areas. I argue that there are three strategic goals that future marine protected areas need to achieve if they are to keep up with our rapidly changing world:

to integrate climate refuges;
to support and strengthen customary practices; and
to embrace new technologies and big data for strategic conservation.

Our future will be defined by climate change. Affecting every continent and ocean, the impacts of climate change do not stop at the borders of protected areas. Warming, acidification and sea-level rise are expected to lead to storms that are more frequent and more intense; a decrease in ocean productivity; shifts in the ranges of species; and an overall reorganisation of coastal and marine environments. Although there is some evidence that marine protected areas can increase resilience so that the environment can absorb and recover from climate impacts, there is also evidence of the opposite: that marine protected areas increase vulnerability by safeguarding sensitive species that are susceptible to climate change.

Climate change must be factored into the design and implementation of marine protected areas. To address ocean warming, scientists expect cooler refuges to help populations persist, thus buying time for animals and plants to adapt to a warmer environment. Some policies are recognising this.

A new Thermal Refugia Protection Policy in California, for example, seeks to identify and protect cold-water refuges for the benefit of salmon as rivers warm. On coral reefs, scientists are searching for the oceanographic conditions that may signal cool-climate refuges, like those potentially in north-western Madagascar. Surprisingly, even stressful environments may provide some refuge. Turbid near-shore conditions, for example, may shield corals from the harmful interaction between temperature and light that promotes coral bleaching.

A diver swims over poached abalone shells in Cape Town's Table Mountain National Park in South Africa.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

A scientist examines coral in the Ponta Do Oro Marine Reserve, Mozambique.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

When it comes to ocean acidification, there may be few places where marine species can escape waters that have become more acidic. However, scientists are investigating how the principles being used to address ocean warming could be applied to ocean acidification. For example, if we can understand the chemistry of the oceans and how it changes, we could identify locations where acidification impacts may be weaker. Until then, marine species may have to learn to cope with changes in the oceans’ chemistry.

Climate refuges might keep marine systems on life support long enough for species to adapt or acclimatise to changing conditions. Measuring the patterns of climate impacts globally and pinpointing the locations of climate refuges are the critical next steps to the incorporation of climate refuges into the design of marine protected areas. Importantly, refuges may shift over time as the impacts of climate change accelerate. Marine protected areas may need to adapt as well, for example by shifting their boundaries as species move to cooler waters. In the face of overwhelming uncertainty, a focus on climate refuges can provide clear conservation action.

As human populations grow and our demands and dependence on marine resources increase, sustainable fisheries face substantial challenges. Marine protected areas, specifically ones that are closed to fishing, are increasingly advocated as a component of fisheries management. It is an approach that has both costs and benefits, but future marine protected areas could gain even more if lessons were to be learnt from the indigenous peoples and customary practices that have governed marine resources for thousands of years.

In the archipelago nation of Fiji in the South Pacific, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society have been learning from traditional tabu (pronounced ‘tambu’) fishery closures managed by local communities. In 2014, the village of Koro Island planned a traditional tabu harvest for their reefs and 10 scientists, myself included, joined them. Using thick vines harvested from forests, the villagers created a lasso around the reef. Over several hours, we swam and kicked and beat the water with our arms to scare the fish into the centre of the lasso and, eventually, a gill net. In the span of one afternoon we caught more than 1,000 fish – enough to feed every family in the village and the neighbouring village. Closing the tabu the following day would enable the fish populations to recover until the next harvest.

A scientist examines coral in the Ponta Do Oro Marine Reserve, Mozambique.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

The De Hoop marine reserve situated near the southernmost tip of Africa is the continent's most important calving and nursery ground for southern right whales.
Photo by Thomas Peschak | National Geographic Creative

Traditional marine closures, such as tabus, that manage fishes like a crop and are periodically harvested can be sustainable. Marine protected areas can support these practices by ensuring that people have exclusive rights to managing their local biodiversity and fisheries, and provide tools for communities to monitor and track the status of their resources. Rights, access and monitoring are key features of the scientific theory linked to shared resources like fisheries. Applying this theory to real-world examples and understanding how effective community-based resource management can scale-up and diffuse to more communities is at the forefront of conservation research.

In the Global South (Africa, Latin America and developing Asia), community-managed marine protected areas may be known as locally managed marine areas (LMMA). LMMAs are a type of spatial management developed from the principle that local communities can be more effective than central governments at managing marine resources. Whether this type of traditional spatial management meets international policies on biodiversity (like the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi target) remains an ongoing conversation. In most cases, a nation’s LMMAs do not meet the formal definition of a protected area. Understanding how community-based conservation can meet these formal definitions – and contribute to international policy targets of 10% protection – is a key consideration for future marine protected areas. For example, although many LMMAs prioritise livelihoods and food security, they also offer opportunities to achieve biodiversity conservation while recognising traditional practices. Future marine protected areas can gain by learning from community-based management and customary practices, as well as the biodiversity benefits they provide.

New technologies are an emerging frontier for marine protected areas. With open technologies, global online access and the era of big data, fishing activities that were previously ‘somewhere over the horizon’ can now be viewed online and in real time. The recently launched Global Fishing Watch (www.globalfishingwatch.org), for example, uses a global feed of vessel locations from satellite information to reveal the movements of fishing boats and their activities over time. By pairing this information with the locations of marine protected areas, citizens and decision-makers can identify illegal fishing and evaluate the effectiveness of management decisions. Conservation drones are another example of technological ‘eyes in the sky’ to detect illegal fishing activities for a fraction of the cost of traditional patrol boats.

Reef fishes and sharks abound off D'Arros island and St Joseph Atoll in the Seychelles. This intact and healthy marine environment enables sharks and fishes to hunt with ease.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

Scientists are also working together with larger datasets than ever before to improve our understanding of marine protected areas. For example, a recent study of 17,348 marine species identified ‘protection gaps’ for 245 of them that are not in any marine protected areas. Similar studies are bringing together global collaborative datasets on reef fishes, corals and governance, and helping us to understand the effectiveness of marine protected areas. This information can guide the strategic implementation of new marine protected areas.

Technology, big data and collaborative partnerships between scientists, governments and stakeholders offer hope for strategic and targeted investment in marine protected areas that produce real, positive effects. Collaborative partnerships like Global FinPrint (www.globalfinprint.org) and the Global Sharks and Rays Initiative leverage numerous NGOs, donors and international organisations to create large and comprehensive impacts. These initiatives recognise that measuring the number of square kilometres of marine protected area is not enough for conservation; we must evaluate the actual on-the-ground impact of marine protected areas and other conservation strategies if we are going to restore marine biodiversity and maintain it into the future.

In the coming decades, the planet will continue to experience rapid social, economic, technological and environmental change. Marine protected areas will play an important role in how we conserve and sustainably manage our oceans. We must make smarter and more strategic decisions about marine resources and the livelihoods, cultures and food security they support. We can anticipate the impacts of climate change and integrate climate refuges into planning in order to buy time for marine biodiversity and human societies to adapt and respond to ongoing change. We can incorporate the practices of traditional fisheries and learn from cultures that have been managing their natural resources for thousands of years. Science and technology can help us find this balance by improving our understanding of the role that customary practices play in marine management and by finding new innovations for people and nature in an era of big data.

Back in Madagascar, the first wave of community-managed marine protected areas provides hope for a hotspot of biodiversity in the Western Indian Ocean. Below the surface, it is heartening for our team surveying the new marine protected areas to see that healthy coral reefs can survive and recover from unprecedented climate events and can continue to support biodiversity and local livelihoods. These reefs have been protected by the people who depend on them and by the swirling ocean currents of the Mozambique Channel. In an uncertain and rapidly changing future, there are many smart and strategic actions that can protect our oceans. But we must continue to search for innovations and work together to achieve impact. Overall, the future of marine protected areas is to adapt to our rapidly changing world in order to give marine life the best chance of survival and resilience in the coming decades.

Reef fishes and sharks abound off D'Arros island and St Joseph Atoll in the Seychelles. This intact and healthy marine environment enables sharks and fishes to hunt with ease.
Photo by Thomas Peschak

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