Deficiencies in monitoring practices of marine protected areas in southern European seas

Worldwide, states are gazetting new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to meet the international commitment of protecting 30% of the seas by 2030. Yet, protection benefits only come into effect when an MPA is implemented with activated regulations and actively managed through continuous monitoring and ad...

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Published in:	Journal of environmental management 2024-03, Vol.355, p.120476-120476, Article 120476
Main Authors:	Giakoumi, Sylvaine, Hogg, Katie, Di Lorenzo, Manfredi, Compain, Nicolas, Scianna, Claudia, Milisenda, Giacomo, Claudet, Joachim, Damalas, Dimitrios, Carbonara, Pierluigi, Colloca, Francesco, Evangelopoulos, Athanasios, Isajlović, Igor, Karampetsis, Dimitrios, Ligas, Alessandro, Marčeta, Bojan, Nenciu, Magda, Nita, Victor, Panayotova, Marina, Sabatella, Rosaria, Sartor, Paolo, Sgardeli, Vasiliki, Thasitis, Ioannis, Todorova, Valentina, Vrgoč, Nedo, Scannella, Danilo, Vitale, Sergio, Di Franco, Antonio
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Adaptive management Animals Baseline data Biodiversity Biomass Conservation of Natural Resources Earth Sciences Ecosystem Environmental Sciences Fisheries Fishes - physiology Marine protected area Monitoring Natura 2000 Oceanography Oceans and Seas Sampling design Sciences of the Universe Surveys and Questionnaires
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Summary:	Worldwide, states are gazetting new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to meet the international commitment of protecting 30% of the seas by 2030. Yet, protection benefits only come into effect when an MPA is implemented with activated regulations and actively managed through continuous monitoring and adaptive management. To assess if actively managed MPAs are the rule or the exception, we used the Mediterranean and Black Seas as a case study, and retrieved information on monitoring activities for 878 designated MPAs in ten European Union (EU) countries. We searched for scientific and grey literature that provides information on the following aspects of MPA assessment and monitoring: ecological (e.g., biomass of commercially exploited fish), social (e.g., perceptions of fishers in an MPA), economic (e.g., revenue of fishers) and governance (e.g., type of governance scheme). We also queried MPA authorities on their past and current monitoring activities using a web-based survey through which we collected 123 responses. Combining the literature review and survey results, we found that approximately 16% of the MPA designations (N = 878) have baseline and/or monitoring studies. Most monitoring programs evaluated MPAs based solely on biological/ecological variables and fewer included social, economic and/or governance variables, failing to capture and assess the social-ecological dimension of marine conservation. To increase the capacity of MPAs to design and implement effective social-ecological monitoring programs, we recommend strategies revolving around three pillars: funding, collaboration, and technology. Following the actionable recommendations presented herein, MPA authorities and EU Member States could improve the low level of MPA monitoring to more effectively reach the 30% protection target delivering benefits for biodiversity conservation. [Display omitted] •Protection benefits occur only when an MPA is implemented and actively managed.•Literature and surveys were used to assess actively managed MPAs in Southern Europe.•Barely 16% of designated MPAs have baseline and/or monitoring studies.•Funding, technology, and collaboration strategies could increase MPAs' efficiency.
ISSN:	0301-4797 1095-8630