Marine Pollution Bulletin 87 (2014) 7–10
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Marine Pollution Bulletin journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul
Viewpoint
The contribution of very large marine protected areas to marine conservation: Giant leaps or smoke and mirrors? Rebecca L. Singleton a,⇑, Callum M. Roberts b a b
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, 2204 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 22 August 2014 Keywords: Marine protected areas MPA Marine policy Fisheries Adaptive management Conservation strategy
a b s t r a c t In recent years, marine protected areas have been ‘‘super-sized’’. At first glance, this seems a gift to marine conservation. Yet, the new wave of very large marine protected areas (‘‘VLMPAs’’) have faced criticism from the scientific community. In this article we examine the merits and the criticisms of VLMPAS, and consider whether they provide a much-needed boost to marine conservation, or are simply too good to be true. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction When it comes to marine protected areas, one might expect conservation groups to say bigger is better. And so they do. In 2012, when the Australian government announced its intention to create nearly 1 million km2 of protected area in the Coral Sea, Greenpeace heralded it as ‘‘a significant step forward for ocean protection’’. Other groups are even more effusive on the virtues of very large marine protected areas (‘‘VLMPAs’’): The Pew Environment Group and the Marine Conservation Institute both have campaigns lobbying for more. VLMPAs are varyingly defined. Some commentators include areas over 30,000km2 (De Santo, 2013) and others only ‘‘mega’’ reserves over 100,000 km2 (Spalding et al., 2013). Using the latter definition, there were 17 VLMPAs in 2012, with most designated since 2006. More exist now (e.g. New Caledonia and The Cook Islands) and yet more are under development (e.g. Sargasso Sea) (Devillers et al., 2014). VLMPAS make a significant contribution to the total marine area protected: As of 2012, sites measuring over 150,000 km2 represented over half of the area protected in MPAs worldwide (MPA News, 2012). In recent years, world leaders seem to have fallen over each other in a scramble to acquire a VLMPA-sized green legacy. In the US, Presidents Clinton, Bush and now Obama have designated VLMPAs (respectively, the Papaha¯naumokua¯kea, Mariana Trench and Pacific Remote Islands parks, plus Obama’s recent initiative ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R.L. Singleton), callum.roberts@york. ac.uk (C.M. Roberts). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.07.067 0025-326X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
in the Pacific). On this side of the pond, successive UK governments created the largest MPAs of their time in the form of the Chagos notake reserve, followed by a multi-use MPA in the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands covering 1,000,000 km2. And here alarm bells begin to ring. Government enthusiasm for meeting conservation targets? In times of austerity when big business is king? ‘‘George W. Bush’’ and ‘‘green legacy’’ in the same sentence? In this paper we explore whether VLMPAs are too good to be true. 2. Target oriented conservation Some of the government enthusiasm for designating VLMPAs may be explained by the targets set out in the Convention on Biodiversity. The parties agreed in 2006 that 10% of the world’s oceans should be effectively protected by 2012. In 2010, realizing the target would not be met, they moved the deadline to 2020 but retained the 10% figure (Spalding et al., 2013). Certainly, VLMPAs are enabling more rapid progress towards the numerical target: with their help, we are on track to reach 10% coverage by 2025, whereas without them it would take until 2054 (Toonen et al., 2013). But how well do VLMPAS meet the other element of the CBD target, that of ‘‘effective’’ protection? 3. VLMPAs and biodiversity conservation Society’s demand for marine resources places limitations on the total area available for protection. This drives debate on the best way to achieve representative coverage of the world’s marine habitats (and therefore species) in protected areas (see Roberts et al.,
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R.L. Singleton, C.M. Roberts / Marine Pollution Bulletin 87 (2014) 7–10
2003 on ecological considerations). Dividing protection across smaller reserves gives more scope to select different habitats in different places to ensure all are represented (Roberts et al., 2001). In addition, protection of habitat types can be replicated across multiple, distinct locations, providing insurance against any one habitat type being destroyed by a localized disaster (Allison et al., 2003; Airamé et al., 2003; Roberts and Hawkins, 2000). On the other hand, a larger reserve might offer refuge to more species, with a greater range of mobility and larval dispersal distances (Roberts et al., 2001, 2003). VLMPAs confound some aspects of this debate. They are so large that they span multiple habitat types and bio-physical regions. In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, for example, scientists have identified 70 distinct bioregions, with habitats ranging from sea grass to coral reef to deep ocean trenches (Fernandes et al., 2005). In addition, unlike with plain ‘‘large’’ MPAs, the accusation that all eggs are in one basket when it comes to disasters like oil spills cannot be levelled at VLMPAs: The Deep Water Horizon oil spill in 2010, the largest ever, covered an area of around 10,000 km2, significantly smaller than the VLMPAs under discussion here. So far, so good for VLMPAs. However, a protected area’s effectiveness in conserving biodiversity depends not only on what resides in it, but also on what is kept out. 4. VLMPAs and fisheries Besides aiding conservation, MPAs can provide benefits to adjacent fishing grounds, via the effects of spillover and egg/larval dispersal (Gell and Roberts, 2003; Palumbi, 2003). However, the larger a reserve becomes, the smaller the ratio of edge to area and the less potential there is to export commercial species and their offspring to fishing grounds (Roberts et al., 2001) (although highly migratory species like tuna are important exceptions). Areas perceived by fishermen to be larger than strictly necessary to enhance stocks are likely to be vehemently opposed and/or have poor compliance (Halpern and Warner, 2003). Until recently, under continued pressure from the fishing industry, conservationists had accepted the practicality of networks of smaller reserves: a means to tread a path of lower resistance with the fishing industry, whilst still achieving effective protection (Kelleher, 1999; Roberts et al., 2001). Provided areas are big enough (or sufficiently well connected to other reserves) to sustain viable populations, benefits to fish numbers, biomass and species richness per unit area are achievable, regardless of reserve size (Halpern, 2003; Lester et al., 2009; Roberts et al., 2003). In the face of the accepted compromise, i.e. networks of smaller reserves as a means to balance commercial and conservation interests, the recent wave of VLMPAs is an anomaly. Perhaps more anomalous still is that (with the notable exception of Chagos) their major critic is often not the fishing industry, but rather the scientific community, who seem suspicious of gift horses (Devillers et al., 2014; De Santo, 2013). We will now consider whether this suspicion is justified. 5. The Coral Sea and the Antarctic: are VLMPAs crafted for the convenience of resource users? The nascent Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was designated in 2012 but still has no management plan (more on that below). Like its older, well-respected neighbor the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the Coral Sea will be zoned to balance user interests (Australian Government, 2012; McCook et al., 2010). However, the Australian Government’s zoning proposal has provoked controversy (Pressey, 2013). Although some facts and figures are obscured by confidentiality, it seems that the zones were designed to leave the most valuable commercial fishing areas unrestricted (Australian Government, 2012). Meanwhile, the proposed no-take
zone covers deeper water that sees little fishing activity at present (Pressey, 2013; Hunt, 2013). In addition, the park appears to have been placed to avoid inconvenience to oil and gas exploration (Devillers et al., 2014). Although there is a proposal to prohibit such exploration throughout the park, there are no valuable reserves within its borders (Pressey, 2013). Condemned as less of a win for conservation than its huge size initially promised, some even go as far as to suggest that the planned Coral Sea park is a waste of money (Hunt, 2013). Similar criticisms have been levelled at many VLMPAs including, surprisingly, those that prohibit all commercial activity, as we will now consider. As a no-take VLMPA located in the high seas, the South Orkney Islands area is doubly impressive. Although the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resource’s (CCAMLR) stewardship greatly facilitates negotiations and management in the Antarctic, international negotiations over such high seas regions are fraught with difficulties. The recent repeated failure of CCAMLR members to create a network of MPAs in the Ross Sea due to disagreements over fishing access illustrates the tensions (Cressey, 2013). One has to question how the South Orkney Islands succeeded where the Ross Sea failed. Sadly, the answer is that for the South Orkney Islands park, difficult issues were side-stepped. CCAMLR members only finally approved the park when its boundaries were re-drawn to exclude valuable fishing grounds (CCAMLR, 2009). It seems there is some truth in the suggestion that VLMPAs are ‘‘residual’’ to resource use (Devillers et al., 2014). However, for a number of reasons both political and ecological, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as we will explain below.
6. Chagos Islands: do VLMPAs undermine social justice? Where some VLMPAs have been accused of tip-toeing around commercial stakeholders to avoid conflict, others have been accused of beating a path to protection by trampling the rights of community stakeholders (De Santo, 2013). The designation of the Chagos Islands VLMPA, the largest MPA in existence at the time, was marred by the emergence of a leaked memo suggesting that the primary motivation for creating the park was not conservation, but exclusion of the Chagossian people (Guardian, 2012; Sand, 2011). The islanders had been removed from the area by the British government in the 1960s to allow the US military to set up a naval base on Diego Garcia. Currently, they do not have the right to return (Grandison et al., 2013). If, in future, a Court or Government grants them such a right (their claim has so far been dismissed by English and European Courts), the argument has been made (De Santo, 2013) that their return may be made more difficult by the no-take MPA now in place, which would prevent them from fishing the waters around the islands if retained. Chagos has been cited by some as evidence that VLMPAs or, specifically, very large no-take zones, disrupt social justice (De Santo, 2013). This is a little harsh. However heinous the removal of the Chagossians in the 1960s, it was not done in the name of environmental protection. Neither did the MPA designation, whatever its apparent motivation, play any part in the decision of the Courts that ruled the Chagossians could not return. If the islanders are ever granted such a right, there is nothing to prevent the rules of the MPA being relaxed to accommodate them (indeed, this view was supported in a recent English Court of Appeal decision that dismissed a Chagossian challenge to the MPA). Set against these concerns, the designation of the Chagos MPA has enhanced the future right to food security and wildlife for a much larger global population through its protection of marine biodiversity. It is true that when designating marine protected areas, especially no-take areas, we must be careful to strike a compromise
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between effective protection and acceptable social impact. However, by targeting areas with few vested interests and stakeholders, VLMPAs seem on the whole less likely to cause widespread social injustice than restrictions in highly populous, marine dependent coastal regions. But, as we will now discuss, a lack of dependent human populations forms the basis for another criticism that has been directed at VLMPAs. 7. Papaha¯naumokua¯kea: are VLMPAs too remote to be useful? The protection provided by the Papaha¯naumokua¯kea marine sanctuary in the uninhabited northwest Hawaiian Islands was created neither to suit commercial interests nor to confound local ones: it is a no-take reserve, established in consultation with native fishers (PMNM, 2014 and De Santo, 2013; Leenhardt et al., 2013). Yet, to some scientists it provides a good example of the most concerning feature of VLMPAs. They cite an increasing trend for marine protected areas to be located far away from major human populations (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). They argue that such remote areas fail to confront the most difficult issues facing the world’s oceans (over-fishing; tourism; pollution) and to protect resources critical for the direct provision of ecosystem services (Spalding et al., 2013). These critics suspect that Governments are targeting protection to these regions to hit sizerelated conservation targets with the minimum of resistance and cost (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). Others are skeptical as to whether enforcement in such large and distant VLMPAs can ever be effective (De Santo, 2013). Overall, there is a negative vibe from some areas of the scientific community that VLMPAs represent the sacrifice of quality for quantity. There is a nugget of truth in this negative image of VLMPAs. Remote surveillance technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, but does not yet provide a complete solution for management (Game et al., 2009; De Santo, 2013). That said, coastal MPAs are not easy to enforce either, especially those with intricate zoning and rules and with large local populations of marine resource users. At least for now, the remoteness of VLMPAs means they are likely to be subject to fewer incursions. This offers de facto protection, which is a primary reason for many to have been established in the first place, prevention of harm being better than cure. In addition, VLMPAs benefit from both economies of scale and centralized governance to co-ordinate policing efforts, which potentially render enforcement cheaper and more effective (McCook et al., 2010; Ban et al., 2011; McCrea-Strub et al., 2011). Co-ordination in particular can be a major challenge for networks of reserves that have grown organically, where individual reserves can remain under the control of multiple parties (Lowry et al., 2009). It is also a fair comment that VLMPAs tend not to cover ‘‘hotspot’’ regions where both biodiversity is rich and demand for resources is high (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). However, they do cover areas that are rich in diversity or are highly productive, and which remain relatively undamaged (e.g. Papaha¯naumokua¯kea, Chagos) (Selkoe et al., 2009 and Sheppard et al., 2012). It has long been a tenet of conservation strategy that we should take a two-pronged approach to protection, targeting both the areas of high value to humans, which are under extreme pressure and more remote wilderness regions, where ecosystems remain intact and provide a back-up reserve of biodiversity (Roberts et al., 2002; Myers et al., 2000). 8. Conclusions: are VLMPAs worthwhile? VLMPAs may not be perfect, but neither are their coastal counterparts. Critically, we do not have to, and should not, choose between the two. The suggestion in many recent scientific critiques
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that Governments (and even NGOs) are now prioritizing quantity over quality to meet conservation targets is misleading. Granted, the majority of the marine area protected in recent years lies within VLMPAs. That is because they are extremely large and relatively easy to implement. But we can find no evidence that they are being established in place of smaller, coastal MPAs. Take the UK for example. In recent years, it has designated extremely large protected areas in the Chagos and South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. Meanwhile, it has been working to build a network of smaller, coastal MPAs around the UK mainland (UK Government, 2013). During this process, NGOs have not let the Government off the hook in home waters because of conservation gains farther afield (DEFRA, 2013). Similarly, in Australia, the criticisms of the Coral Sea VLMPA for being ‘‘residual’’ may, to some extent, be fair, but fail to acknowledge that it was designated at the same time as a large number of small MPAs located in areas of intensive use and contention by resource users. This again counters the allegation that ‘‘easy win’’ VLMPAs are a distraction from the hard graft of smaller scale MPA establishment in areas of intensive human use and impact. Governments like a simple metric by which to measure progress, and the size related targets of the CBD and WSSD have spurred efforts to create MPAs (Spalding et al., 2013; Leenhardt et al., 2013). To the extent that the metric of ‘‘area covered’’ does not encapsulate good conservation practice, it is up to us as a community of scientists to agree upon other, equally simple, understandable metrics that do. By squabbling amongst ourselves about what type of MPA is ‘‘the best’’ we simply cloud the overall message that needs to get through to politicians and the public: the marine environment needs far more protection than it currently receives. To return to the point we raised at the outset of this paper: We may accuse past governments of over-blowing their green achievements in creating VLMPAs, but surely that was preferable to the upfront environmental destruction that is now pursued by leaders such as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott? Recently, management plans for the Coral Sea have been suspended, whilst industrial scale dredging has been approved in the Great Barrier Reef MPA (Jabour, 2014). It is interesting, though, that the former went largely unnoticed, while the latter provoked public outcry, environmental campaigns and, ultimately, strict conditions on the dredging (Jabour, 2014). This highlights an oftneglected value that lies in the very creation of VLMPAs: publicity. The creation of the GBRMPA and its existence now for almost 40 years has heightened public awareness of the biological value of the region and created a presumption in favor of protection that is now difficult to undermine. It is worth remembering too that the Great Barrier Reef MPA was far from perfect in terms of conservation when it was first created, with zoning shaped to avoid resource use pressures just as it is in the new Coral Sea park (Devillers et al., 2014). The GBR’s management plan has been adapted and refined over the years, and the same could happen for the Coral Sea’s, if its management plan eventually makes it off the drawing board (DeVillers et al., 2014; McCook et al., 2010). Every time we create a VLMPA, we reinforce the message that there is something worth protecting. If there is a political mood to create them, let us seize that opportunity before it is taken away, as with the Coral Sea, or before resources degrade through intensified use. VLMPAs alone may not represent the perfect conservation strategy, but if they can help us embed the message of a need for marine protection in public and political psyches, we will be in a much stronger position to argue for more, including the many places where uses are intense.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Marine Pollution Bulletin journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul
Viewpoint
The contribution of very large marine protected areas to marine conservation: Giant leaps or smoke and mirrors? Rebecca L. Singleton a,⇑, Callum M. Roberts b a b
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, 2204 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada Environment Department, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 22 August 2014 Keywords: Marine protected areas MPA Marine policy Fisheries Adaptive management Conservation strategy
a b s t r a c t In recent years, marine protected areas have been ‘‘super-sized’’. At first glance, this seems a gift to marine conservation. Yet, the new wave of very large marine protected areas (‘‘VLMPAs’’) have faced criticism from the scientific community. In this article we examine the merits and the criticisms of VLMPAS, and consider whether they provide a much-needed boost to marine conservation, or are simply too good to be true. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction When it comes to marine protected areas, one might expect conservation groups to say bigger is better. And so they do. In 2012, when the Australian government announced its intention to create nearly 1 million km2 of protected area in the Coral Sea, Greenpeace heralded it as ‘‘a significant step forward for ocean protection’’. Other groups are even more effusive on the virtues of very large marine protected areas (‘‘VLMPAs’’): The Pew Environment Group and the Marine Conservation Institute both have campaigns lobbying for more. VLMPAs are varyingly defined. Some commentators include areas over 30,000km2 (De Santo, 2013) and others only ‘‘mega’’ reserves over 100,000 km2 (Spalding et al., 2013). Using the latter definition, there were 17 VLMPAs in 2012, with most designated since 2006. More exist now (e.g. New Caledonia and The Cook Islands) and yet more are under development (e.g. Sargasso Sea) (Devillers et al., 2014). VLMPAS make a significant contribution to the total marine area protected: As of 2012, sites measuring over 150,000 km2 represented over half of the area protected in MPAs worldwide (MPA News, 2012). In recent years, world leaders seem to have fallen over each other in a scramble to acquire a VLMPA-sized green legacy. In the US, Presidents Clinton, Bush and now Obama have designated VLMPAs (respectively, the Papaha¯naumokua¯kea, Mariana Trench and Pacific Remote Islands parks, plus Obama’s recent initiative ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R.L. Singleton), callum.roberts@york. ac.uk (C.M. Roberts). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.07.067 0025-326X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
in the Pacific). On this side of the pond, successive UK governments created the largest MPAs of their time in the form of the Chagos notake reserve, followed by a multi-use MPA in the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands covering 1,000,000 km2. And here alarm bells begin to ring. Government enthusiasm for meeting conservation targets? In times of austerity when big business is king? ‘‘George W. Bush’’ and ‘‘green legacy’’ in the same sentence? In this paper we explore whether VLMPAs are too good to be true. 2. Target oriented conservation Some of the government enthusiasm for designating VLMPAs may be explained by the targets set out in the Convention on Biodiversity. The parties agreed in 2006 that 10% of the world’s oceans should be effectively protected by 2012. In 2010, realizing the target would not be met, they moved the deadline to 2020 but retained the 10% figure (Spalding et al., 2013). Certainly, VLMPAs are enabling more rapid progress towards the numerical target: with their help, we are on track to reach 10% coverage by 2025, whereas without them it would take until 2054 (Toonen et al., 2013). But how well do VLMPAS meet the other element of the CBD target, that of ‘‘effective’’ protection? 3. VLMPAs and biodiversity conservation Society’s demand for marine resources places limitations on the total area available for protection. This drives debate on the best way to achieve representative coverage of the world’s marine habitats (and therefore species) in protected areas (see Roberts et al.,
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2003 on ecological considerations). Dividing protection across smaller reserves gives more scope to select different habitats in different places to ensure all are represented (Roberts et al., 2001). In addition, protection of habitat types can be replicated across multiple, distinct locations, providing insurance against any one habitat type being destroyed by a localized disaster (Allison et al., 2003; Airamé et al., 2003; Roberts and Hawkins, 2000). On the other hand, a larger reserve might offer refuge to more species, with a greater range of mobility and larval dispersal distances (Roberts et al., 2001, 2003). VLMPAs confound some aspects of this debate. They are so large that they span multiple habitat types and bio-physical regions. In the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, for example, scientists have identified 70 distinct bioregions, with habitats ranging from sea grass to coral reef to deep ocean trenches (Fernandes et al., 2005). In addition, unlike with plain ‘‘large’’ MPAs, the accusation that all eggs are in one basket when it comes to disasters like oil spills cannot be levelled at VLMPAs: The Deep Water Horizon oil spill in 2010, the largest ever, covered an area of around 10,000 km2, significantly smaller than the VLMPAs under discussion here. So far, so good for VLMPAs. However, a protected area’s effectiveness in conserving biodiversity depends not only on what resides in it, but also on what is kept out. 4. VLMPAs and fisheries Besides aiding conservation, MPAs can provide benefits to adjacent fishing grounds, via the effects of spillover and egg/larval dispersal (Gell and Roberts, 2003; Palumbi, 2003). However, the larger a reserve becomes, the smaller the ratio of edge to area and the less potential there is to export commercial species and their offspring to fishing grounds (Roberts et al., 2001) (although highly migratory species like tuna are important exceptions). Areas perceived by fishermen to be larger than strictly necessary to enhance stocks are likely to be vehemently opposed and/or have poor compliance (Halpern and Warner, 2003). Until recently, under continued pressure from the fishing industry, conservationists had accepted the practicality of networks of smaller reserves: a means to tread a path of lower resistance with the fishing industry, whilst still achieving effective protection (Kelleher, 1999; Roberts et al., 2001). Provided areas are big enough (or sufficiently well connected to other reserves) to sustain viable populations, benefits to fish numbers, biomass and species richness per unit area are achievable, regardless of reserve size (Halpern, 2003; Lester et al., 2009; Roberts et al., 2003). In the face of the accepted compromise, i.e. networks of smaller reserves as a means to balance commercial and conservation interests, the recent wave of VLMPAs is an anomaly. Perhaps more anomalous still is that (with the notable exception of Chagos) their major critic is often not the fishing industry, but rather the scientific community, who seem suspicious of gift horses (Devillers et al., 2014; De Santo, 2013). We will now consider whether this suspicion is justified. 5. The Coral Sea and the Antarctic: are VLMPAs crafted for the convenience of resource users? The nascent Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was designated in 2012 but still has no management plan (more on that below). Like its older, well-respected neighbor the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the Coral Sea will be zoned to balance user interests (Australian Government, 2012; McCook et al., 2010). However, the Australian Government’s zoning proposal has provoked controversy (Pressey, 2013). Although some facts and figures are obscured by confidentiality, it seems that the zones were designed to leave the most valuable commercial fishing areas unrestricted (Australian Government, 2012). Meanwhile, the proposed no-take
zone covers deeper water that sees little fishing activity at present (Pressey, 2013; Hunt, 2013). In addition, the park appears to have been placed to avoid inconvenience to oil and gas exploration (Devillers et al., 2014). Although there is a proposal to prohibit such exploration throughout the park, there are no valuable reserves within its borders (Pressey, 2013). Condemned as less of a win for conservation than its huge size initially promised, some even go as far as to suggest that the planned Coral Sea park is a waste of money (Hunt, 2013). Similar criticisms have been levelled at many VLMPAs including, surprisingly, those that prohibit all commercial activity, as we will now consider. As a no-take VLMPA located in the high seas, the South Orkney Islands area is doubly impressive. Although the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resource’s (CCAMLR) stewardship greatly facilitates negotiations and management in the Antarctic, international negotiations over such high seas regions are fraught with difficulties. The recent repeated failure of CCAMLR members to create a network of MPAs in the Ross Sea due to disagreements over fishing access illustrates the tensions (Cressey, 2013). One has to question how the South Orkney Islands succeeded where the Ross Sea failed. Sadly, the answer is that for the South Orkney Islands park, difficult issues were side-stepped. CCAMLR members only finally approved the park when its boundaries were re-drawn to exclude valuable fishing grounds (CCAMLR, 2009). It seems there is some truth in the suggestion that VLMPAs are ‘‘residual’’ to resource use (Devillers et al., 2014). However, for a number of reasons both political and ecological, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as we will explain below.
6. Chagos Islands: do VLMPAs undermine social justice? Where some VLMPAs have been accused of tip-toeing around commercial stakeholders to avoid conflict, others have been accused of beating a path to protection by trampling the rights of community stakeholders (De Santo, 2013). The designation of the Chagos Islands VLMPA, the largest MPA in existence at the time, was marred by the emergence of a leaked memo suggesting that the primary motivation for creating the park was not conservation, but exclusion of the Chagossian people (Guardian, 2012; Sand, 2011). The islanders had been removed from the area by the British government in the 1960s to allow the US military to set up a naval base on Diego Garcia. Currently, they do not have the right to return (Grandison et al., 2013). If, in future, a Court or Government grants them such a right (their claim has so far been dismissed by English and European Courts), the argument has been made (De Santo, 2013) that their return may be made more difficult by the no-take MPA now in place, which would prevent them from fishing the waters around the islands if retained. Chagos has been cited by some as evidence that VLMPAs or, specifically, very large no-take zones, disrupt social justice (De Santo, 2013). This is a little harsh. However heinous the removal of the Chagossians in the 1960s, it was not done in the name of environmental protection. Neither did the MPA designation, whatever its apparent motivation, play any part in the decision of the Courts that ruled the Chagossians could not return. If the islanders are ever granted such a right, there is nothing to prevent the rules of the MPA being relaxed to accommodate them (indeed, this view was supported in a recent English Court of Appeal decision that dismissed a Chagossian challenge to the MPA). Set against these concerns, the designation of the Chagos MPA has enhanced the future right to food security and wildlife for a much larger global population through its protection of marine biodiversity. It is true that when designating marine protected areas, especially no-take areas, we must be careful to strike a compromise
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between effective protection and acceptable social impact. However, by targeting areas with few vested interests and stakeholders, VLMPAs seem on the whole less likely to cause widespread social injustice than restrictions in highly populous, marine dependent coastal regions. But, as we will now discuss, a lack of dependent human populations forms the basis for another criticism that has been directed at VLMPAs. 7. Papaha¯naumokua¯kea: are VLMPAs too remote to be useful? The protection provided by the Papaha¯naumokua¯kea marine sanctuary in the uninhabited northwest Hawaiian Islands was created neither to suit commercial interests nor to confound local ones: it is a no-take reserve, established in consultation with native fishers (PMNM, 2014 and De Santo, 2013; Leenhardt et al., 2013). Yet, to some scientists it provides a good example of the most concerning feature of VLMPAs. They cite an increasing trend for marine protected areas to be located far away from major human populations (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). They argue that such remote areas fail to confront the most difficult issues facing the world’s oceans (over-fishing; tourism; pollution) and to protect resources critical for the direct provision of ecosystem services (Spalding et al., 2013). These critics suspect that Governments are targeting protection to these regions to hit sizerelated conservation targets with the minimum of resistance and cost (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). Others are skeptical as to whether enforcement in such large and distant VLMPAs can ever be effective (De Santo, 2013). Overall, there is a negative vibe from some areas of the scientific community that VLMPAs represent the sacrifice of quality for quantity. There is a nugget of truth in this negative image of VLMPAs. Remote surveillance technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, but does not yet provide a complete solution for management (Game et al., 2009; De Santo, 2013). That said, coastal MPAs are not easy to enforce either, especially those with intricate zoning and rules and with large local populations of marine resource users. At least for now, the remoteness of VLMPAs means they are likely to be subject to fewer incursions. This offers de facto protection, which is a primary reason for many to have been established in the first place, prevention of harm being better than cure. In addition, VLMPAs benefit from both economies of scale and centralized governance to co-ordinate policing efforts, which potentially render enforcement cheaper and more effective (McCook et al., 2010; Ban et al., 2011; McCrea-Strub et al., 2011). Co-ordination in particular can be a major challenge for networks of reserves that have grown organically, where individual reserves can remain under the control of multiple parties (Lowry et al., 2009). It is also a fair comment that VLMPAs tend not to cover ‘‘hotspot’’ regions where both biodiversity is rich and demand for resources is high (Spalding et al., 2013; Devillers et al., 2014; Leenhardt et al., 2013). However, they do cover areas that are rich in diversity or are highly productive, and which remain relatively undamaged (e.g. Papaha¯naumokua¯kea, Chagos) (Selkoe et al., 2009 and Sheppard et al., 2012). It has long been a tenet of conservation strategy that we should take a two-pronged approach to protection, targeting both the areas of high value to humans, which are under extreme pressure and more remote wilderness regions, where ecosystems remain intact and provide a back-up reserve of biodiversity (Roberts et al., 2002; Myers et al., 2000). 8. Conclusions: are VLMPAs worthwhile? VLMPAs may not be perfect, but neither are their coastal counterparts. Critically, we do not have to, and should not, choose between the two. The suggestion in many recent scientific critiques
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that Governments (and even NGOs) are now prioritizing quantity over quality to meet conservation targets is misleading. Granted, the majority of the marine area protected in recent years lies within VLMPAs. That is because they are extremely large and relatively easy to implement. But we can find no evidence that they are being established in place of smaller, coastal MPAs. Take the UK for example. In recent years, it has designated extremely large protected areas in the Chagos and South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. Meanwhile, it has been working to build a network of smaller, coastal MPAs around the UK mainland (UK Government, 2013). During this process, NGOs have not let the Government off the hook in home waters because of conservation gains farther afield (DEFRA, 2013). Similarly, in Australia, the criticisms of the Coral Sea VLMPA for being ‘‘residual’’ may, to some extent, be fair, but fail to acknowledge that it was designated at the same time as a large number of small MPAs located in areas of intensive use and contention by resource users. This again counters the allegation that ‘‘easy win’’ VLMPAs are a distraction from the hard graft of smaller scale MPA establishment in areas of intensive human use and impact. Governments like a simple metric by which to measure progress, and the size related targets of the CBD and WSSD have spurred efforts to create MPAs (Spalding et al., 2013; Leenhardt et al., 2013). To the extent that the metric of ‘‘area covered’’ does not encapsulate good conservation practice, it is up to us as a community of scientists to agree upon other, equally simple, understandable metrics that do. By squabbling amongst ourselves about what type of MPA is ‘‘the best’’ we simply cloud the overall message that needs to get through to politicians and the public: the marine environment needs far more protection than it currently receives. To return to the point we raised at the outset of this paper: We may accuse past governments of over-blowing their green achievements in creating VLMPAs, but surely that was preferable to the upfront environmental destruction that is now pursued by leaders such as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott? Recently, management plans for the Coral Sea have been suspended, whilst industrial scale dredging has been approved in the Great Barrier Reef MPA (Jabour, 2014). It is interesting, though, that the former went largely unnoticed, while the latter provoked public outcry, environmental campaigns and, ultimately, strict conditions on the dredging (Jabour, 2014). This highlights an oftneglected value that lies in the very creation of VLMPAs: publicity. The creation of the GBRMPA and its existence now for almost 40 years has heightened public awareness of the biological value of the region and created a presumption in favor of protection that is now difficult to undermine. It is worth remembering too that the Great Barrier Reef MPA was far from perfect in terms of conservation when it was first created, with zoning shaped to avoid resource use pressures just as it is in the new Coral Sea park (Devillers et al., 2014). The GBR’s management plan has been adapted and refined over the years, and the same could happen for the Coral Sea’s, if its management plan eventually makes it off the drawing board (DeVillers et al., 2014; McCook et al., 2010). Every time we create a VLMPA, we reinforce the message that there is something worth protecting. If there is a political mood to create them, let us seize that opportunity before it is taken away, as with the Coral Sea, or before resources degrade through intensified use. VLMPAs alone may not represent the perfect conservation strategy, but if they can help us embed the message of a need for marine protection in public and political psyches, we will be in a much stronger position to argue for more, including the many places where uses are intense.
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