Applying Marine Protected Area Frameworks to Areas beyond National Jurisdiction

Emily S. Nocito, Jenna Sullivan-Stack, Elizabeth P. Pike, Kristina M. Gjerde and Cassandra M. Brooks
Additional contact information
Emily S. Nocito: Department of Environmental Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Jenna Sullivan-Stack: Department of Integrative Biology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Elizabeth P. Pike: Marine Protection Atlas (MPAtlas), Marine Conservation Institute, Seattle, WA 98103, USA
Kristina M. Gjerde: IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme, IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Cassandra M. Brooks: Department of Environmental Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-22

Abstract: Marine protected areas (MPAs) can provide a range of ecological benefits. Frameworks—including the IUCN protected area categories and The MPA Guide —offer tools towards evaluating an MPA’s objectives, types, Level of Protection, and potential effectiveness. However, the majority of MPAs exist in national waters, raising the question of how these frameworks apply in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). We evaluated the existing ABNJ MPAs in the Antarctic designated through the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) using the two above mentioned frameworks. The newly released The MPA Guide , which complements guidance from the IUCN protected area categories, provides perhaps the most exhaustive framework as it seeks to evaluate implementation, enabling conditions, and outcomes. The CCAMLR MPAs ranged from Category 1A (for IUCN)/Highly Protected (for The MPA Guide ) to Category IV (for IUCN)/Lightly Protected (for The MPA Guide ) due to differences in management objectives and activities occurring within the zones of the MPAs. Given ongoing negotiations for a new international, legally binding treaty for high seas biodiversity, evaluating an MPA using these existing frameworks will prove useful to allow for a full comprehensive picture of an MPA and what it can expect to achieve.

Keywords: marine protected areas; areas beyond national jurisdiction; BBNJ; CCAMLR; Antarctica; level of protection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/10/5971/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/10/5971/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:10:p:5971-:d:815694

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().