In order to succeed in their conservation objectives and enhance the resilience of marine ecosystems against climate change, Marine Protected Areas must be effectively managed. This requires, amongst other actions, integrating climate change effects into their management plans and involving stakeholders at all levels and stages.
The Mediterranean Sea is rapidly warming and this increase in temperature is leading to unwanted changes in marine ecosystems. Additionally, the anthropogenic impacts derived from activities such as fishing, tourism, extraction, pollution and others are contributing to decreased resilience of key marine ecosystems and species, especially those more vulnerable, and therefore jeopardizing its preservation.
As a countermeasure, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) play an important role in enhancing the resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems. They protect the ecosystems by reducing risks, anthropogenic impacts and other non-climate related stressors. Furthermore, they offer a range of nature-based solutions, providing benefits to our society as well as natural solutions to mitigate climate change impacts, and can act as sentinel sites to monitor its effects.
Effective management to stand climate change
Additionally, and according to the Policy Paper published in the framework of MPA Engage, a prequel of the MPA4Change project, there is increasing evidence supporting that MPAs that ignore climate change effects risk establishing conservation targets that are unlikely to be achieved, since these effects are strongly leading shifts and trends in the marine ecosystems they are trying to protect.
Nonetheless, despite the importance of integrating climate change adaptation measures into MPA planning and management, as well as into policy, the uptake of these measures needs to be well coordinated and they require that MPAs follow adaptive management schemes to be effective.
To achieve effective management, decisions cannot be taken at MPA level without considering stakeholders at all levels. For this reason, establishing partnerships with local communities, decision makers, research bodies, socio-economic actors and other interest groups is a cornerstone of the effectiveness of MPAs and therefore of their resilience and capacity to adapt to environmental changes and withstand climate change.
EUROPARC’s efforts to improve management effectiveness in Marine Protected Areas
In 2024, EUROPARC Federation as the bigger network of Protected Area professionals in Europe, organised a dedicated event in Northern Germany, the Siggen Seminar 2024 – Catching the wave: How can we achieve more effective management in Marine Protected Areas?
The seminar gathered ten experts in marine conservation, including MPA managers, management effectiveness consultants and representatives of conservation agencies and ministries. During it, they had the opportunity to discuss and exchange on key aspects that need to be tackled in order to improve management effectiveness and its assessment in MPAs in Europe.
Participants during Siggen Seminar 2024 – Photo by EUROPARC Federation
The topic is known to be a tricky one to address, especially because general answers to improve management effectiveness seem difficult to find. Furthermore, it entails complex questions that are often case specific and are driven by the varied reality of management schemes, political and socio-economic features of MPAs in our continent.
However, some noteworthy considerations were obtained during the Siggen Seminar. For example, the assessment of management effectiveness is considered to be a key element to improve management practices, understand the impact of management plans, compare results and communicate them to the local communities.
Additionally, it is also perceived as a non-standardised process that tends to be carried out in different styles, for different purposes, by different people, which makes it difficult to replicate across MPA networks.
During the Seminar, other aspects were identified as priority in order to achieve effective MPA management: the need to have clear conservation objectives, the involvement of stakeholders in all stages of the design and implementation of MPA plans, and the enforcement of the regulations.
You can see the whole Siggen Seminar 2024 report to learn more about management effectiveness in MPAs.
Improving management effectiveness through MPA4Change
In line with this work, the partnership of MPA4change will soon make available a set of toolkits aimed to support MPAs in achieving a more effective management. These toolkits include protocols on citizen science and participation that aim to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in the management of an MPA.
As identified both during the Siggen Seminar, as well as in the Policy Paper published by MPA Engage, stakeholder involvement is a priority to improve management effectiveness and climate change adaption in MPAs. For this reason, we encourage all MPA managers interested in achieving greater conservation outcomes and improving the resilience of their MPAs to take a close look at these resources.
Additionally, the toolkits will include communication materials aiming to raise awareness on climate change and the importance of adaptation, as well as specific protocols for monitoring its impacts, assess the vulnerability of an MPA, draft adaptation measures and carrying out restoration actions.
Find out more about the toolkits and the capacity building programme that MPA4change is developing and register to our mailing list in order to keep learning how to improve the effectiveness of MPAs and adapt to climate change
