MPA & LMMA in Milne Bay Province
This report provides some of the thoughts or points to consider in setting up MPAs (marine protected areas) and LMMAs (locally managed marine areas) with the local communities in Milne Bay Province
Marine Bioregions of Vanuatu
There are not perfect data which describe the distribution and abundance of every marine habitat and species in the Pacific. And certainly not at a scale that is useful for national planning in the ocean. Bioregionalisation, or the classification of the marine environment into spatial units that host similar biota, can serve to provide spatially explicit surrogates of biodiversity for marine conservation and management. Existing marine bioregionalisations however, are at a scale that is too broad for national governments in the Pacific to use.
Cook Islands Protected Areas Data (WDPA, August 2019)
Cook Islands Protected Areas (PA) data from the World Database (WDPA). This dataset includes both tables and spatial data.
Climate change is not being taken into account in the design and management of marine parks, according to research featuring University of Queensland scientists.
The southern Cook Islands of Atiu, Mauke and Mitiaro have turned down a request that local company Ocean Fresh be allowed to fish commercially within 50 nautical miles of their islands. The Nga Pu Toru say they will uphold the Marae Moana legislation...The establishment of the Marae Moana ma
Gaps in Protection of Important Ocean Areas: A Spatial Meta-Analysis of Ten Global Mapping Initiatives
To safeguard biodiversity effectively, marine protected areas (MPAs) should be sited using the best available science. There are numerous ongoing United Nations and nongovernmental initiatives to map globally important marine areas. The criteria used by these initiatives vary, resulting in contradictions in the areas identified as important. Our analysis is the first to overlay these initiatives, quantify consensus, and conduct gap analyses at the global scale.
Marine zoning revisited: How decades of zoning the Great Barrier Reef has evolved as an effective spatial planning approach for marine ecosystem‐based management
For more than 40 years, marine zoning has played a key role while evolving as part of the adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park.
A team of marine scientists are on a mission to preserve biodiversity in oceans around the world. To do it, they need accurate maps that will help them identify areas in need of protection.
Environmental representativity in marine protected area networks over large and partly unexplored seascapes
Converting assemblages of marine protected areas (MPAs) into functional MPA networks requires political will, multidisciplinary information, coordinated action and time. We developed a new framework to assist planning environmental representativity in a network across the marine space of Portugal, responding to a political commitment to protect 14% of its area by 2020. An aggregate conservation value was estimated for each of the 27 habitats identified, from intertidal waters to the deep sea.
The Arnavon Community Marine Park in Isabel province has won a Blue Park award from the Marine Conservation Institute and its international science council. The award was announced last week at the 2019 Our Ocean Conference in Oslo, Norway.
