Designing Networks of Marine Protected Areas to Achieve Fisheries, Biodiversity and Climate Change Objectives in Tropical Ecosystems
Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly no-take marine reserves (also known as fisheries closures, fish banks or fish replenishment areas), when well designed and managed effectively, can be powerful tools for fisheries management, biodiversity protection and climate change adaptation.
The following resources provided are ecological guidelines for designing networks of MPAs to achieve multiple objectives including fisheries management in coral reef ecosystems.
Scientific literature reviews on MPA design:
Designing Marine Reserves for Fisheries Management, Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Change Adaptation. Green et al (2014) Coastal Management 42(2), 143-159.
Larval Dispersal and Movement Patterns of Coral Reef Fishes, and Implications for Marine Reserve Network Design. Green et al (2014) Biological Reviews: 90 (4): 1215-1247
The Intrinsic Vulnerability to Fishing of Coral Reef Fishes and Their Differential Recovery in Fishery Closures. Abesamis et al (2014) Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 24(4), 1033-1063.
This information is also available in a variety of formats for different audiences:
Designing Marine Protected Area Networks to Achieve Fisheries, Biodiversity and Climate Change Objectives in Tropical Ecosystems - a Practitioner's Guide . A succinct, graphic and user-friendly synthesis of the scientific information for field practitioners.
Designing Effective Locally Managed Areas in Tropical Marine Environments. A guide for community based managers including a series of posters and speaking notes for facilitators to discuss important considerations regarding MPA network design with local communities who may own and manage these resources.
Using Marine Protected Area Networks to Achieve Fisheries, Biodiversity and Climate Change Objectives A policy brief for senior government officials, policy makers and decision makers.
To dive in deeper on MPA design visit the Reef Resilience Coral Reef Module on Resilient MPA Design.
Please contact Alison Green (agreen@tnc.org) if you would like access to the digital files to print the posters used in these documents.
