Welcome
”Our planet's vast oceans have been viewed throughout history as an inexhaustible resource, both in terms of what they can produce and what they can absorb. But the ecological limits of oceans became apparent in the past decade. Eleven of the world's 15 most important fisheries and 70 percent of commercial fish species are now fully exploited or overexploited. And pollution of coastal waters often contaminates many remaining marine species.” - Worldwatch Institute
Marine Protected Areas: A New Solution to an Age Old Problem?
Marine Protected Areas are an exciting and novel management tool which many claim will improve age-old dilemmas in fisheries conservation and management. They can potentially be used to:
- Protect vulnerable habitat and species
- Increase biodiversity
- Prevent overfishing
- Conserve resources for future generations
- Help in scientific research and reduce uncertainty
With this website, we hope to introduce you to Marine Protected Areas in all their complexity: what they are, why they're useful, how they should be planned and implemented, what they can do and, most importantly, who they affect. We also hope to show the role monitoring and evaluation has in their performance: how and why they should be evaluated.
As a case study, we present the East End Marine Park, a new MPA at St. Croix, within the U.S. Virgin Islands. Facing difficulties common to MPAs around the world as well as peculiarities of its own, it serves as an example of the hopes and problems of MPAs in general.
Distilled from two weeks of field work and months of research, we present here all sides of the MPA question. We hope that you will take time to explore the resources we have compiled, to better understand one of the most important and salient issues within marine conservation.