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This is an excerpt from a database of locations and approaches to marine conservation planning approaches compiled by Heather Leslie.
In the last decade, there has been increasing interest—particularly among international nongovernmental and multilateral development organizations—in evaluating the effectiveness of conservation and development projects. To evaluate success, we need more comprehensive and case-specific information on how conservation decisions are made. This paper investigates a database that synthesizes information on 27 marine conservation planning cases from around the world. The author collected data on each case’s geographic scale, primary planning objective and outcome, legal and institutional context, degree of stakeholder involvement, and the ecological criteria and tools used to facilitate conservation decisions.
This paper discusses the different criteria which can be assessed in selecting sites to be marine reserves. To avoid the common problem of socio-economic considerations outweighing ecological considerations, the authors develop a series of criteria that allow preliminary evaluation of candidate sites according to their relative biological values in advance of the application of socioeconomic criteria. They include criteria that, while not strictly biological, have a strong influence on the species present or ecological processes. They submit that while the criteria can be applied to the design of reserve networks, they also enable choice of single reserves to be made in the context of the attributes of existing protected areas. The overall goal of their scheme promotes the development of reserve networks that will maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functioning at large scales. They submit that the values of ecosystem goods and services for people ultimately depend on meeting this objective.
This is a very short discussion of the effectiveness of small sized marine reserves. The document looks at a case studies from around the world and discusses the lessons to be learnt from them.
This study describes spatial patterns in the biodiversity (species, assemblages) of rocky reef fishes at a spatial scale relevant to management, and compares the outcomes for this biodiversity from alternative procedures for selecting marine protected areas (MPAs) and from the selection of MPAs for fisheries-related objectives.
This paper discusses how concepts and theory for the design and application of terrestrial reserves is based on our understanding of environmental, ecological, and evolutionary processes responsible for biological diversity and sustainability of terrestrial ecosystems and how humans have influenced these processes. It discusses how well this terrestrial-based theory can be applied toward the design and application of reserves in the coastal marine environment depends, in part, on the degree of similarity between these systems. It then goes on to discuss several marked differences in ecological and evolutionary processes which exist between marine and terrestrial ecosystems as ramifications of fundamental differences in their physical environments (i.e., the relative prevalence of air and water) and contemporary patterns of human impacts. The authors submit that these differences imply some unique design criteria and application of reserves in the marine environment. In explaining the implications of these differences for marine reserve design and application, they identify many of the environmental and ecological processes and design criteria necessary for consideration in the development of such analytical approaches.
Selection criteria play an important role in the process of identifying, valuing, and designating marine protected area (MPAs). This report examines the role of site selection criteria in establishing a network of marine protected areas in the Gulf of Maine. The importance of criteria in providing a rational basis for site selection is first examined. Criteria are identified as guidelines that add consistency to the decision-making process and enable the clarification and achievement of program goals. The application of criteria for ranking candidate sites in order of preference is also briefly discussed and exemplified by the U.S. National Marine Sanctuary Program.
Using ecological criteria as a theoretical framework, the authors describe the steps involved in designing a network of marine reserves for conservation and fisheries management. Although we describe the case study of the Channel Islands, the approach to marine reserve design may be effective in other regions where traditional management alone does not sustain marine resources.
