Effectiveness of MPAs

Global Effectiveness of MPAs (Reefs at RIsk, 2011)

In a review undertaken by Reefs At Risk to capture the ecological effectiveness of MPAs in reducing threats of overfishing, they obtained scores for 1,147 MPA sites, representing about 43% of documented MPAs and 83% of total reef areas in MPA. What they found is dismaying. (Definition of ratings are described below the figure) Nearly 47% of the 1,147 reef MPAs are considered to be ineffective in reducing overfishing. When comparing coral reefs and management effectiveness, they found that in terms of reef areas, 6% of the global reefs are in MPA areas that are considered effectively managed, and a further 13% in areas deemed to be partially effective. However, with the high levels of protection in Australia, it skews the global average; for outside the boundaries of Australia, only 17% of coral reefs are within MPAs.

In addition there is a term, “paper parks” used to describe MPA sites who are ineffective simply because of lack of basic implementation of a management framework or the framework is not enforced.

A project called the Reefs at Risk Southeast Asia (RRSEA) measured effectiveness of MPAs in Southeast Asia, based on criteria that include staff size, management facilities, community outreach programmes and existence of management plans. After the removal of “paper parks”, and MPAs for which the management effectiveness was unavailable, there are 342 MPAs that are assessed (which are about half of the nearly 600 MPAs that remained after removal of “paper parks”). Only 14% of these 342 MPAs are reviewed to be effectively managed. A further 48% is partially effectively managed and 38% are inadequately managed.  The fact that there is a lack of information for management effectiveness of the other half of the MPAs usually indicates a lack of staff and financial resources.