Rick Stuart-Smith1, Ella Clausius1, Graham Edgar1
1University of Tasmania, Australia
It is clear that the 30x30 target for protection of the world’s seas is not going to be achieved, but are we getting somewhere useful by chasing it? Results from models trained on underwater surveys of 500 MPA zones in 58 countries are indicating that ecological benefits on shallow reefs are unlikely to be evident in far more of the world’s MPAs than we’d expect, even based on management inputs (e.g. no-take regulations). So what has gone wrong? Instead of focussing on the ecological results in this presentation, I’ll discuss the numerous parts of the process where communication breakdown has contributed to ineffective and unsupported MPAs and appears to be undermining global conservation progress. This includes between scientists, policy makers/government representatives, advocacy groups, local coastal communities, fisheries scientists, fishers, and Joe and Jane Blo on the street. It may be too late to change the world’s MPA network and what it can achieve underwater, but some of the lessons we can take away from this are relevant to many aspects of conservation - and are important ingredients for improving the environmental and societal impact of our research.
Biography
Rick is a member of the Ecology and Biodiversity group at IMAS. His research covers aspects of biogeography, community and macro-ecology, and studies of human impacts, such as pollution, exploitation, invasive species and climate change on marine fauna and flora. A major motivation for his research is to improve the way marine biodiversity is monitored, reported, managed and protected, through contributing to more ecologically-informed policy at larger scales, and guiding local management