The Ocean has a distinctive intrinsic beauty that is embodied by its majestic stance that inspires human beings with a sense of mystery and fascination combined with a glimpse of fear and reverence. From tourists to fishermen or curious individuals, the many oceans of the world attract millions of people every year. While most of us associate the ocean with recreational activities or sea traveling and transportation, we often forget that people depend on the ocean for their own survival. From food, to oxygen, to transportation, commerce or sports, water remains an important pillar at the centre of our lives. Protecting the ocean the various living creatures it fosters is not a task reserved to marine biologists or scientists; it is the duty of every human being. The need to establish marine protected areas (MPAs) is fundamental to the long-term survival of the oceans, and of entire communities that depend on its resources to live. With the right strategy and a solid evaluation and long-term follow up MPA’s have a beneficial effect on fishing results.
Most of people don’t know that an important portion of the world’s oxygen comes from the ocean, a key player to the carbon cycle. Yet, most of us also don’t know or fail to realize that “only a mere 0.5% of the oceans are protected!” (Source: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/east_african_coast/publications/?21432/Marine-Protected-Areas-providing-a-future-for-fish-and-people). Today, our world’s ocean is under great stress due to overfishing, pollution, degradation, and overuse of marine and coastal resources. Even the 0.5% of the oceans that are under official protection are nonetheless open to fishing and to tourism. In most regions where MPAs are already efficiently in place fishing activities have been more prolific. In those areas, it appears to be that fishers seem to move their activities closer to the protected boundaries; “such fishing-the-line allows fishers to benefit from spillover of animals from inside the closed area” (source: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/marineprotectedareas.pdf). Most fish have floating larvae or eggs that often drift out of the protected zone and therefore nurturing unprotected distant fishing grounds. As the stock increases inside the protected area, mature fish move out in order to populate foreign patches. Fishermen can then safely collected their harvest.
A concrete example of this beneficial result is the case of the Apo Island Reserve in the Philippines. Since the implementation of the marine protected areas, catches in this region have increased ten times more and have been stable for the last 15 years. In addition, MPAs have the ability to function on a large scale with the same positive results. In the Georges Bank region off Maine, after lowering maximum number of fish caught annually and banning gear that could accidentally harm other species, fish stocks have increased and so have the variety of attractive species. “By protecting spawning grounds and areas where juvenile fish spend their time growing up, fish can be spared until they reach maturity and have already given rise to offspring before being caught” (Source: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/marineprotectedareas.pdf). Protecting fish by allowing them to live longer, grow and multiply has beneficial consequences for the fauna e marine ecosystem but also for the economy.
Close to 40% of the world population lives in the vicinity of a coast and most of these people depend on the resources of the sea for their survival. As poverty becomes an acute problem in many of those regions, this phenomenon often goes hand in hand with overfishing and the over use of natural resources. This overuse is unsustainable resources on the long term, creating a vicious circle. For instance, “the artisanal reef fishery on Zanzibar, Tanzania, is crucial to approximately 60, 000 fishers and contributes to over 60% of protein to local communities” (Source: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/marineprotectedareas.pdf). In order to secure the future of such communities the increase number of marine protected areas is fundamental.
Few people realize that poverty is a serious cause of the diminution of biodiversity. Environmental initiatives need to collaborate with NGOs and other organizations that work to fight poverty in order to establish a common plan of action. Communicating this to local communities while having them directly involve in such long-term sustainability projects is crucial to the success of MPAs.
