Putting the pieces together to save the ocean

Despite decades of advances toward integrated methods of conservation, most of the world’s marine protected areas (MPAs) are still managed in a piecemeal fashion, without strategic planning for the future or for the impacts on local communities. Unless we implement a system-wide, tactical management approach that plans for a rapidly changing climate, we will miss the boat for ocean conservation.

For almost a decade the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System was on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger due to the destruction of mangroves and marine ecosystems, offshore oil extraction, and the development of unsustainable development projects. The coral reef system is part of the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere and its degradation threatened the 200,000 Belizeans who rely on it to live, as well as many endangered species, including sea turtles, manatees and the American marine crocodile.

Following a moratorium on oil exploration and a ban on trawling, along with the introduction of no-take fisheries zones and the transformation of all remaining public lands into strict mangrove reserves, the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System was removed from the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger in 2018. In 2022, Belize topped it off with a national debt refinancing that unlocked USD$ 180 million for ocean conservation efforts. A yearly allocation of USD$ 4 million, lasting up to 2040, is directed towards the conservation of the World Heritage area and other marine areas nationally. An additional USD$ 90 million endowment fund is being established to finance MPA conservation  beyond 2041. 

At the heart of Belize’s success sits a science-based, integrated management plan, with spatially explicit, future-oriented scenarios that detail the environmental and socio-economic goals and objectives the government expects to implement to secure the UNESCO World Heritage listed coral reefs’ resilience in the face of climate change over the next decades.

According to the World Database on Protected Areas, there are more than 18,000 marine protected areas (MPAs) globally, covering just over 8% of the ocean. Only about 3% of the ocean is fully or highly protected today, leaving most open to multiple human uses.  The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed in Montreal in December 2022, calls for at least 30% of the ocean to be protected by effectively and equitably managed MPAs by 2030. In our rapidly changing ocean, delivering these MPAs demands a comprehensive management approach that adequately identifies and addresses the change across the system, for both nature and people, and allows to determine the decisions that need to be taken today to achieve the expected outcomes decades from now. Few MPAs are ready for this, and the window is closing.

Through a USD$ 10 million Resilient Reefs Initiative, pioneered by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and implemented through a global consortium of partners alongside UNESCO, we focus is on a system-wide, strategic climate resilient planning where we support local government authorities to work with reef communities, businesses, tourism operators, and civil society representatives together to jointly set priorities on how to adapt the reef to the challenges faced by climate change. In Palau’s Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, for example, priorities focus on implementing crucial legislation on fisheries management that is aimed at maintaining access to resources for local communities while simultaneously preserving fish stocks’ sustainability for the future. Ningaloo Coast in Australia just released its first community-driven resilience strategy with 40 priority actions which will now serve as a framework for future decision-making and fundraising. New Caledonia just delivered its first reef-wide strategic plan covering its entire 15,000 km2 reef, and involving over 200 stakeholders in the process.  

Success stories like these give us hope. While the world works toward reducing emissions and achieving the global, long-term target of an average temperature of 1.5°C above pre-industrial times, we must remain focussed on making MPAs as resilient as we possibly can, those we have now and the new areas that will be established to attain the 30 by 30 goal.

A comprehensive, science-based resilience strategy that identifies and addresses strategically the change the ecosystem and the community face and reduces human action that further deteriorates the system’s capacity to rebound from climate stress, will make all the difference as the ocean continues to warm and becomes more acidic disrupting biodiversity & ecosystem functioning in the process. Continuing a piece-meal approach is not an option.

To learn more about the UNESCO World Heritage Marine Programme, follow Dr. Fanny Douvere .