Marine Protected Areas: IUCN Global Standards for Success

Great event to launch the @iucn global MPA standards w/ @SethHorstmeyer @NinaBhola Chris Santora, me, @JaneLubchenco and @saltylance giving remarks on their development and importance.
Thanks for attending!!#IMCC5 pic.twitter.com/8awKADsTJC

— Angelo Villagomez (@TaotaoTasi) June 25, 2018

Last week I got to give a short speech in front of a room full of ocean conservation leaders attending the International Marine Conservation Congress in Kuching, Malaysia to launch the IUCN Global Standards for Success -- that's the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Standards spell out what IUCN members have agreed needs to be in place for an area of ocean to be considered protected, and I was able to speak for two minutes on what they mean to the organization that employs me. A few other folks also gave speeches about what it means to their work: Seth Horstmeyer, Program Director, Oceans 5; Nina Bhola, Director, UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Christine Santora, Assistant Director for Policy and Outreach, Institute for Ocean Conservation Scienc; Jane Lubchenco, marine biologist, Oregon State University; and Lance Morgan, President, Marine Conservation Institute.

This is an issue my employer has let me work on for almost two years now. Many have noticed that there are some marine protected areas out there that shouldn't really be called marine protected areas (for a number of reasons). In my own career, the Trench Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, which is also called the Mariana Trench National Wildlife Refuge, protects the benthic habitat in the deepest areas of the Mariana Trench -- but not the water column or the ecosystems and animals living above the sea floor. Since no marine habitat is protected, it shouldn't really be called a marine protected area. There are other marine protected areas, such as two thirds of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia, that allow industrial levels of commercial fishing. That shouldn't really be called a marine protected area either, it's more of a fisheries management area.

This creates a host of issues, from countries getting global recognition for protecting the ocean when they haven't actually done so, to citizens expecting benefits of marine protected areas, including there being more fish, bigger fish, and more fish biomass, but there not being any because the area isn't actually protected. As a result, some countries are claiming that they've met global targets for protecting the ocean (10% by 2020), when a closer look reveals that they really haven't.

In response to this, several of my colleagues at Pew, along with some prominent scientists, wrote recommendations to IUCN on how to improve their marine protected area classification. My super smart co-worker Dr. Johnny Briggs broke it down in a blog 'How Much of the Ocean is Really Protected?' The answer, of course, being not as much as we are being told. Several other groups and scientists have also been pointing out these issues, including the signatories to the Malta Declaration. And the Marine Conservation Institute has been tracking this issue on their MPAtlas for years.

In response to these discussions, IUCN held a meeting of experts earlier this year to pull together existing information on how IUCN defines protected areas to help bring clarity to what it means to actually be 'protected.' The outcome of that process is what I spoke about at the launch last week. IUCN has posted their Global Standards for MPA Success on their website (in three languages!) for managers, advocates, scientists, funders, and anyone else who cares about marine protected areas to use. The organization I work for has been helping to promote them, so I interviewed Mike Wong, the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas’ vice chair for the North American region, to discuss the process, what they mean, and how they can be used. And then in turn, while I was at the International Marine Conservation Congress I was interviewed by Andrew Lewin for the Speak Up For the Blue podcast.

That I've been working on this kind of stuff might surprise some of my readers (both of you) because I feel like I'm better known for the work I've done in small communities to pass environmental policy. Well, this isn't exactly policy, but a lot of the principles are the same: working with partners, listening to concerns, and building towards consensus. Anyway, thought this work might be of interest, and I shared a bunch of links where you can read up more on the issue.