draft global ocean refuge criteria from locales around the world make it difficult to conclude that...

Draft Global Ocean Refuge Criteria

Introduction It’s probably unnecessary to remind any First Global Ocean Refuge Criteria Workshop

participant that our oceans are in trouble. Since marine scientists began saying that on the

global policy stage (Norse 1993), the situation has worsened. Although modern marine

extinctions are under-studied (Carlton et al. 1999; Roberts and Hawkins 1999), abundant

evidence from locales around the world make it difficult to conclude that mass extinction is

not approaching.

Humankind’s existential question: Is there a way for the world to avoid that?

Marine scientists think so (eg MCBI 1998). Yet marine conservation remains a heavy lift

because most people focus mainly on themselves but don’t understand how marine life

affects their interests. The importance of life-driven processes to human survival and

prosperity has not stopped the sea’s downward trajectory. The world urgently needs more

effective, faster ways to motivate people to conserve.

Because governments have been disappointingly slow, Marine Conservation Institute was

founded as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in 1996 to accelerate conservation of the

world’s marine biodiversity.

Despite some major successes, Marine Conservation Institute has seen how conservation

decisions are often overwhelmed by other players in policy and political arenas. Outspent

and out-organized, marine conservationists mostly lose even though modern society seems

to love oceans. To improve the odds, marine conservation needs a new, different dynamic.

A challenge for marine conservation is that few populations perpetuate themselves in

captivity, or even endure it, so for the foreseeable future marine conservation will happen

mostly in situ. If humankind wants a marine biodiversity insurance policy akin to the crop

biodiversity insurance policy called the Global Seed Vault in ex situ Svalbard, the marine one

must be in situ. In that way the sea is different.

But like the land, the sea is biologically heterogeneous on all spatial scales up to global. The

onset and progress of threats are also heterogeneous in space and time. So, given the seas’

GLORES draft criteria for IMCC workshop / of 19

complexity, the places the world protects must be based on the best available information.

Often that will come from scientists, but others will likely share information as well.

Because Marine Conservation Institute is compelled by the evidence that species have

endured hostile conditions in refugia (eg Meagher 1973; Hewitt 2000) we have envisioned

and are working to catalyze a new, robust, enduring in-situ solution to the threat of mass

extinction: the Global Ocean Refuge System (GLORES).

Building on the idea of assembling regional or global networks of no-take marine reserves

(eg Murray et al 1999; Sala et al 2002; Roberts et al 2006), GLORES goes further. It

encourages protection of the best places for conserving biodiversity using a new way to

motivate governments to protect oceans in alignment with the recommendations of marine

scientists.

Because it’s not natural change that now threatens marine species and our species, and

because most solutions require people to act in our best interests, GLORES’ success will

depend on both natural and social sciences. GLORES will set biodiversity-based standards

for effective marine protected areas (MPAs) and encourage governments to propose their

MPAs for Global Ocean Refuge status, which will be awarded using marine scientists’

criteria.

Marine scientists’ training and experience position us to decide which MPAs are likely to be

the best, most enduring refugia (or in situ biodiversity banks, or Noah’s Arks or insurance

policies for marine species; each of these seems to resonate with different audiences). To

succeed, all we need to do is get enough governments to care about marine conservation.

Not an easy task. One that so far has eluded us.

Why? Foresight is not a universal trait. Many people don’t consider how their decisions will

affect their 7th generation or even their own later years. And governments are comprised of

people, and—like many other institutions—they are driven mainly by the need to solve

short-term problems. But as former US President Dwight Eisenhower explained, leadership

is “the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do

it”. Getting people to act in their own best interest often requires appealing to something

more immediate and compelling than their desire to pass on their genes or for the good of

all.


What is GLORES? GLORES is a way to motivate governments to accelerate strong MPA designation to get as

many marine species as possible to survive what surely will be very difficult times to come.

GLORES will succeed by rewarding governments whose MPAs meet criteria designed by

marine scientists. By conferring Global Ocean Refuge status, marine scientists are saying

these are the best places to protect and recover biodiversity (diversity of genes, species and

ecosystems), for taxa from seaweeds to whales, from polar to tropical waters, from estuaries

and intertidal zones to the open ocean, for benthic features including slopes, banks,

canyons, plains, ridges, seamounts vents and seeps, and for permanent, periodic or

ephemeral pelagic features such as convergences and upwellings. Marine Conservation

Institute thinks that GLORES will do so at exceptionally low cost for a global effort of this

importance.

Until now, marine scientists and conservation NGOs have seldom enjoyed great success in

aligning governments’ interests with conservation. GLORES is designed to change that by

catalyzing an enduring win-win solution for marine life and people.

GLORES’ geographic scale GLORES is designed to work at regional and global scales.

At a time when the need for MPAs is global but resources for conservation are severely

limiting and narrowly focused in space and time, nearly all MPA efforts are location-specific

“one-offs” whose products range from biologically useless “parks only on paper” (POOPs) to

valuable, effective refuges (Edgar et al. 2014 recently estimated that less than 10% are

effective for biodiversity conservation). The world’s collection of “protected” marine places

is not a strategically assembled, global marine biodiversity portfolio of strong MPAs.

GLORES will change that.

International legal authority allows GLORES to work in countries’ waters. The UN

Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives States (countries, more or less) both the

right and responsibility to conserve marine life in their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).

While some EEZ boundaries are in dispute, enough EEZs are undisputed that there is a path

to GLORES.

The place-based marine biodiversity conservation of GLORES is fully compatible with

international treaties (eg the UN Convention on Biological Diversity or CBD), many

governments’ marine spatial planning efforts and recent proposals to close the high seas to

commercial fishing (eg White and Costello 2014, Global Ocean Commission 2014) to improve

fisheries’ economies and save governments’ and taxpayers’ money.


Because some of the most important places for pelagic highly migratory species or for

continental slope, seamount, vent, trench, nodule plain or other deep-sea species might be

on the high seas (not within nations’ EEZs), a key question to address in a future workshop

is whether GLORES’ approach can also work on the high seas, where legal authority to

manage places comprehensively is not yet clearly or universally established.

GLORES’ goal The world will have a diversified portfolio of marine ecosystems in every biogeographic

region that, as a system, confers the greatest possible resilience against mass extinction.

There will likely be large benefits to fisheries and other economic sectors in the waters near

MPAs that meet Global Ocean Refuge Criteria. Those desirable consequences are very

welcome additions. But GLORES’ purpose is conserving the diversity of genes, species and

ecosystems (as defined in Norse et al 1986), making it more focused than the 10 human goals

in the Ocean Health Index, of which biodiversity is only 1.

GLORES aims to catalyze strong protection for 20% of each ecosystem type in each

biogeographic region by 2030. That is an order of magnitude increase in 16 years, a very

steep challenge achievable only by changing the now-unfavorable dynamics of marine

conservation. But it would be an outcome with many winners.

GLORES’ modus operandi GLORES will succeed by getting countries or provinces/states to compete in their regions

and worldwide for prestige and revenues from having their MPAs win Global Ocean Refuge

status.

GLORES will encourage governments to strengthen existing MPAs and designate new ones

with the greatest biodiversity benefits. In a world where status really matters, GLORES will

publicly laud the provinces/states and countries that save marine life by designating and

effectively managing the world’s best MPAs.

Marine Conservation Institute’s experience shows that praising leaders for leading on MPAs

can have very good results.


GLORES will incentivize marine conservation advocates and countries Marine NGOs generally compete instead of working together. Seeing this disunity,

countries and provinces/states don’t pay much attention to conservation advocates who’ve

been urging governments to protect ocean places.

GLORES is designed to incentivize marine NGOs to collaborate to motivate countries and

provinces/states to compete for the honor of winning Global Ocean Refuge status.

Funders could quickly and meaningfully change the status quo by sending clear, strong

economic signals to NGOs to collaborate effectively on GLORES (a precedent with other

benefits). NGOs pay attention to funders, so funders should pay more attention to NGO

effectiveness, including their ability to collaborate effectively.

GLORES will call attention to countries and provinces/states that have Global Ocean

Refuges using high-impact communications vehicles (including a scheduled annual event).

GLORES will create an inimitable, prestigious global status that governments will trumpet if

their MPAs earn it.

There are useful precedents to learn from NGOs that do this. The Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences (Academy Awards), International Olympic Committee (Gold,

Silver and Bronze Medals), Transparency International (Corruption Perceptions Index),

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED certification for green buildings),

Marine Stewardship Council (seafood certification) and the Ocean Health Index are familiar

NGO-led examples that offer insights on what works and what doesn’t.

GLORES’ appeal to powerful human interests: prestige and money There are many reasons why people conserve marine life or don’t. Some people care about

other species for their sake, some use goods or services marine life provide, some care about

their descendants, some care only about themselves. The world needs more who care about

oceans. GLORES appeals to all these different mindsets.

Provincial/state and federal governments that hold decision-making power mostly ignore

those who want MPAs. How can that change quickly enough for the world to avoid mass

extinction?

The economics literature suggests that economic benefits will accrue to countries and

provinces having areas with attributes like those of Global Ocean Refuges. For example in

Vanuatu the presence of an MPA affects 40-75% of visitors’ decisions (depending on the site)

to travel to a particular destination (Pascal 2011). Center for Responsible Travel (2013) found


that Turneffe, Belize’s largest and newest MPA, contributed $24 million in tourism and

recreational fishing, $38 million in protection from hurricanes and 1,220 full-time jobs in

2011, compared with commercial fishing at Turneffe ($500,000 and 180-200 jobs). The USA’s

National Park Service found that tourism visits to national parks in 2012 contributed $14.7

billion in spending in communities within 60 miles of a park (Thomas et al 2012). 40% of

World Heritage Sites had increased visitation after their designation (Hall and Piggin 2001,

Van der Aa 2005).

Awards and certifications also have economic consequences. Winning an Oscar for Best

Picture increases a film’s revenue by $18.1 million; winning Best Actor increases it by $5.8

million and winning Best Supporting Actor increases it by $2.3 million (source). LEED

certification increases rents 9%; LEED Platinum-rated buildings—the highest certification

level—command a 16% increase in rents over unrated and uncertified buildings (Dakowicz

2012).

The prestige of having Global Ocean Refuges is likely to attract increased revenues and

employment for the private sector, and higher appropriations and/or tax revenues to

governments. That should make them more likely to heed marine scientists and NGOs on

the front lines of marine conservation, a much-needed change from the existing dynamic.

GLORES’ audiences GLORES’ primary audiences are participants in decision-making processes strongly affecting

marine biodiversity: governments, NGOs, funders, businesses and local communities. These

are not marine scientists’ usual audiences, and to make GLORES work, marine scientists

need to talk with these audiences in ways they will embrace.

The most important thing when we marine scientists communicate is our audience.

Criteria for Global Ocean Refuges The key to GLORES’ success is having the best possible criteria to catalyze a system of MPAs

that minimizes risk of mass extinction. Marine Conservation Institute wants marine

scientists to set these standards for Global Ocean Refuge status. That’s the main task of the

first GLORES’ workshop at IMCC3 in Glasgow.

Marine scientists have been thinking seriously about biodiversity benefits of MPA

“networks” since at least the 1990s (eg Ballantine 1997). Some (eg Roberts et al 2006) have

called for protecting 40% of the sea. A goal that emerged from discussions by marine


scientists (eg by Jane Lubchenco and colleagues at annual meetings of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science) was to protect 20% of marine ecosystems in

no-take reserves by 2020. More recently, the 10th Conference of the Parties to the CBD gave

us Aichi Target 11 (http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/):

By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 per cent of

coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for

biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and

equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of

protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and

integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.

Aichi Target 11 lowers the bar for “managed areas” which could be met even with temporary

fishery closures, rather than real MPAs.

“MPAs” are still falling far short of all these targets. GLORES is designed to change that.

Because GLORES will encourage governments to strengthen existing MPAs and designate

new ones with the greatest biodiversity benefits, the foresight and validity of Global Ocean

Refuge criteria are crucial to minimize unintended consequences.

Although GLORES’ goal of averting mass extinction is not identical to those other MPA-

relevant efforts, GLORES criteria are informed by science-based precedents including

California Department of Fish and Game (2008) Master Plan for Marine Protected Areas

under the Marine Life Protection Act and the CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical

and Technological Advice on Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs)

(SBSTTA 2014).

Some scientists (eg Mora and Sale 2011) warn that MPAs are being designated too slowly and

are too weakly enforced to maintain biodiversity. 2 new scientific papers brightly illuminate

key strengths and weaknesses of existing MPAs.

Devillers et al (2014) highlighted the importance of location. They pointed out that many

marine protected areas were not the best areas to save (not the highest-value real estate),

but the easiest to save. That’s not an ideal biodiversity strategy because location is crucial in

the sea, as on land.

Edgar et al (2014) examined 5 major features of successful marine protected areas: 1) no-take

protection, 2) strong enforcement, 3) time since protection began, 4) size and 5) isolation.

These factors in combination contribute to positive MPA biodiversity outcomes (eg presence

http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/


of large predators). One, 2 or even 3 of them is insufficient. Only MPAs having 4 or

(especially) 5 key features produced key MPA biodiversity benefits.

In thinking about GLORES since November 2011, vetting ideas with many people and making

changes along the way, Marine Conservation Institute here offers draft criteria for Global

Ocean Refuges that reflect the recent analyses and thinking of marine scientists. Because

time is short, it is important that the finalized criteria work from the outset, although they

might evolve as we learn what works and what doesn’t.

The GLORES criteria need to be: 1) simple enough in concept so most anyone can intuitively

understand them (as scientists we are tend to focus on complexities, but GLORES’ target

audiences are not scientists); 2) effective for protecting and/or recovering the highest

possible diversity of vulnerable taxa in diverse habitats; 3) resilient so that enough Global

Ocean Refuges in each biogeographic region will remain viable even when unpleasant

surprises happen; 4) of net benefit to local people (not only extractive users) consistent with

accomplishing GLORES’ primary goal of saving marine biodiversity by protecting enough of

the right areas as seas warm and acidify; and 5) transparent, consistent with GLORES’

primary goal.

Your expert insights will help strengthen these criteria. We know there are many

uncertainties and ways things could go wrong, but we urge you not make the perfect the

enemy of the good. We need you to tell us what we’ve gotten right and wrong (which will

reassure potential GLORES partners and funders), and (perhaps most important) what we’ve

omitted that must be Global Ocean Refuge criteria. Because scientists have diverse

perspectives, we do not expect that there will be anything like unanimity on all criteria. But

GLORES will succeed only by reflecting marine scientists’ best thinking.

Transparency GLORES will work best if the list of criteria is transparent, so that governments will have a

good idea of what they must do to win Global Ocean Refuge status for their MPAs. Because

GLORES is intended to run for decades or more, the criteria could evolve over time as new

information fundamentally changes our understanding about extinction risks. But we think

the burden of proof must be on those who would change the list of criteria.

In contrast, changes in scientific understanding (of biological and socioeconomic processes)

and governing institutions can often be sudden, so the quantitative weighing of the GLORES

criteria must able to change each year as experts’ awareness of conservation needs changes.


Ranking To some individuals, economic sectors and governments, the important GLORES decision

will be binary: whether a place is or isn’t a Global Ocean Refuge. But many others will pay

attention to status ranking.

To incentivize governments at the regional or global level, we think a simple, familiar status

ranking system works best: giving Bronze, Silver and Gold Global Ocean Refuge status to

sites that meet their respective GLORES criteria.

This has many benefits. For example, GLORES outreach efforts can publicize governments’

latest point totals, eg, Cuba 37 points, Martinique 16 points, Antigua and Barbuda 13 points,

British Virgin Islands 8 points, Grenada 1 point, etc (Note that this list includes Caribbean

both sovereign nations and territories). And GLORES will give governments and the private

sector legal permission to advertise their individual Global Ocean Refuges and the latest

year’s GLORES point totals. They should like using those ecolabels.

The psychology of the Bronze-Silver-Gold medal system has fascinating aspect. Gold

medalists may be happiest, but Medvec et al. (1995) found that Bronze medalists are actually

happier than silver medalists. Evidently Bronze winners celebrate “making the cut” while

Silver winners feel they’ve fallen short of top honors, something to keep in mind as we “set

the bar” for these 3 levels.

Since Marine Conservation Institute’s people has worked in- and with governments for many

years, we have come to think that measuring MPA effectiveness can be a useful incentive to

governments, and began to do that with a one-criterion ranking of governments’ MPAs

called SeaStates 2013 (http://seastates.us/2013/SeaStates_US_2013_Report.pdf), a domestic

US trial run for GLORES. SeaStates 2013 quickly drew strong responses in New Jersey, South

Carolina and Texas, among the states ranking lowest in no-take reserves. That was

illuminating. More nuanced ranking (perhaps global, perhaps regional) plus a smart

strategy and resources needed to make a strong, sustainable media push each year could

make GLORES’ comparisons among governments socioeconomically rewarding and—more

important—useful for conservation.

With the right criteria and adequate resources, GLORES will get governments’ attention;

revocability will keep it.

http://seastates.us/2013/SeaStates_US_2013_Report.pdf


Revocability of Global Ocean Refuge status If the Global Ocean Refuge System is as successful as we think, it’s just possible that some

government might try to game it. GLORES will retain the legal right to revisit (publicly or

quietly) and (if necessary) to downgrade or revoke Global Ocean Refuge status based on new

information and a fair GLORES quality control process.

GLORES will both encourage designation of strong new, well-located MPAs and ongoing

management of MPAs that meet GLORES standards. Revocability will ensure that

governments pay attention.

New or existing MPAs? Although one of the easiest possible measures of GLORES’ success will be trends in the

regional or global annual rates of new Bronze, Silver and Gold status awards, Marine

Conservation Institute thinks it is important to reward new MPAs and existing ones on a

level playing field. There is practical reason to do so: The NGO and government people

responsible for the best MPAs until now will look good to their supervisors and will advance

in their careers. Marine conservation will benefit from upward movement of people who

have found ways to make or keep MPAs strong and soundly managed.

Contiguous or multi-unit MPAs There are benefits to larger size (some of which are area benefits per se and others benefits

of being further from edges) and to well-dispersed archipelagos or networks of protected

areas. One of the most important things the participants could address is how do deal with

this question (and the related question of the upsides and downsides of connectivity) in

weighing MPAs for which nations seek GLORES status.

A real-world question is what to do with 2-zoned or multi-zoned mosaics? Does GLORES

accept proposals from provinces/states or countries for individual zones or only from whole

administrative units (eg Great Barrier Reef Marine Park)? And if the latter, how do we score

something that is 60% no-take and 40% in several lower conservation categories? Marine

Conservation Institute seeks participants’ wisdom on this.

Status ranking Criterion 1) Location The sea’s heterogeneity on different spatial scales makes certain areas (including source

areas important for metapopulation dynamics) especially important to conserve (so said

Crowder and Norse 2008). In a world that is heterogeneous in time as well as space, it seems


that the best MPA locations for maintaining and recovering biodiversity combine high a)

importance and b) viability for measuring the value of a location.

1a) Importance Biodiversity importance can mean i) having higher-than background endemism, ii) having

high species or ecosystem diversity for its biogeographic region, giving it high

representativity, iii) being key habitat for priority populations, iv) being an important

place for connectivity, or v) being ecologically and biogeographically underrepresented.

i. Endemics include new species, relicts and species inhabiting unique ecosystems (eg

Amsterdam and St. Paul Islands, the only extant oceanic islands and shallow benthic

ecosystems in the warm temperate Indian Ocean).

ii. High diversity places are high-value biodiversity real estate as habitat for more

species.

iii. Priority populations are ones that are listed as high priority for conservation by

(CITES) Appendices I & II, IUCN Red listing, Canada’s Species at Risk Act, US

Endangered Species Act regulations, etc We suspect that the need to identify these

priority species populations will generate new money for biological studies. Which

ones merit priority? Pimm et al. (2014) calculate that the world’s extinction rate per

million years has increased from 0.1 to 100, an average time until extinction of 10,000

years. Places important to species having only decades or centuries until extinction

merit highest priority. For these and other GLORES priority populations, key

habitats include permanent, periodic and episodic ephemeral places especially

important for social aggregation, breeding, development of early life history stages

(nurseries) or feeding, ie continuously occupied or predictably occupied places.

GLORES anticipates needing 20% of each of the ecosystems in each biogeographic

region to save marine life in our increasingly stressed global ecosystem.

iv. Some places are especially important for population and metapopulation

connectivity (including mustering stations, migratory flyways, ocean highways and

migratory choke-points, feeding stopovers and destinations). Allowing source areas

to propel metapopulation dynamics is an important way to reduce risk in the

warming, acidifying oceans of coming decades, so species’ ranges can shift as the sea

changes.

v. Underrepresented places are those whose addition meaningfully adds to

biodiversity conservation because there are no or few other places like them. For


example, protecting the 1st, 3rd or 10th seagrass meadow in a biogeographic region is

likely more important for species populations than protecting the 100th meadow in

the same region. Ecosystem conservation does best by starting with protecting now-

underrepresented ecosystems; because in any sound biodiversity strategy, rarity

really matters. There will need to be a conservation-focused global marine

biogeographic regional map and ongoing gap analysis.

1b) Viability Is the probability that an area will not be seriously affected by ocean acidification and

climate change in a given time interval. We recognize that there are many increasing

threats, but those 2 are the greatest threats that are indifferent to MPA borders and are

happening in more-or-less predictable places at more-or-less predictable times. MPAs that

will soonest be in harm’s way don’t seem to be ideal in situ seed banks.

Assessing viability requires robust spatiotemporal models that show where and when severe

impacts from acidification and climate change are likely to happen.

A viability screen could be: Is among the 50% least vulnerable comparable areas from ocean

acidification or climate change

Importance of more- and less- biologically intact areas One question that GLORES should address is whether to “preserve” the best viable

ecosystems now versus places that could play key biodiversity roles only in the future. That

was the dilemma in The Lands that Nobody Wanted (Shands 1977). Because GLORES is a

strategic system-catalyzing effort, saving the best-located places now maintains the pool of

biotic source material. After GLORES conducts gap analyses, it might be very good to

incentivize governments to protect and recover the marine equivalents of Great Smoky

Mountains National Park.

Pristineness and high potential to support biodiversity in the future are both important, but

they are no more of equal value than $1 today and $1 in 20 years. At this time Marine

Conservation Institute thinks GLORES should focus on places’ importance now rather than

on their value if they can recover, which becomes less certain as time passes.

In a perfect world we would have pristine ecosystems, but it’s not a perfect world. Edgar et

al (2014) used sharks and groupers to indicate pristineness because they seem to go from

abundant to absent as fishing pressure rises from 0 to small but meaningful. It would be


wonderful to have a valid index of recovery that could use biological metrics (grouper

biomass, coral cover, etc.) to measure GLORES’ impact.

Status ranking Criterion 2) Size MPAs vary in size by at least 9 orders of magnitude, so size is a major variable. For

conserving biodiversity, larger areas are better because they a) support higher population

sizes, b) have lower likelihood of being entirely within a stressor’s lethal radius and c) have

higher potential for self-recruitment. Larger areas may have higher β-diversity as well.

Large size is one of 5 key factors for MPA effectiveness (Edgar et al. 2014), yet McCrea-Strub

et al (2011) show that most MPAs are quite small; 54% of MPAs are no more than 10 km2.

As McCrea-Strub and coauthors also found, a very small number of very large marine

protected areas (VLMPAs) enclose 70% of total MPA area. Moreover, these VLMPAs are

remote from large human populations. Yet most MPAs are both small and closer to large

populations than these VLMPAs. Marine Conservation Institute recommends a strategy that

reflects the differences between nearshore areas (which tend to have more competing uses)

and remote areas, where some MPAs might be small but where designating and maintaining

VLMPAs are possible if there are effective enforcement mechanisms.

There are good reasons to prioritize strongly protected VLMPAs, but places such as the 0.215

km2 Medes Islands Marine Reserve in the Mediterranean off Catalunya, Spain show that

even tiny protected areas near human populations can generate powerful biodiversity

benefits within their boundaries and economic benefits in nearby communities.


Status ranking Criterion 3) Strength (de jure and de facto) The great majority of MPAs have little real conservation benefit because they offer only weak

protections and/or because those protections are not universally observed. MPAs are

effective at conserving biodiversity only when they have legal or cultural support including

effective ways to stop people from degrading them by fishing, polluting, mining, dredging

and drilling. No-take marine reserves that a) bar extractive and other activities that cause

significant ecosystem degradation and b) ensure compliance with those legal protections are

the only MPAs that consistently show the MPA benefits in Lester et al (2009).

Timing is now with us. In the past, even areas with strong protection in law or custom (both

ones adjacent to land and remoter ones) were difficult to enforce. New technologies (eg

Automatic Identification Systems or AIS, satellite observation and cell phones that can take

and send timestamped, geolocated images) and their effective integration into legal

processes will make enforcement of de jure protections much easier in the near future. This

timing allows GLORES to be effective even in a world where people don’t always follow the

rules.

Marine Conservation Institute thinks that the strength of legal protection is a crucial

variable to consider in Global Ocean Refuge status determination, but that management (as

discussed in http://www.cbd.int/protected-old/PAME.shtml) and enforcement are not

Global Ocean Refuge variables; they are both presence/absence standards. Places that

provide stronger legal protection should do better only if they have adequate management

plans and implementation, and adequate enforcement or other methods to ensure

compliance. If these measures are not in place—ie if MPAs are POOPs—they are not Global

Ocean Refuges.

Status ranking Criterion 4) Duration Planned or revocable closures to fishing gears can be a very useful fishery management tool,

but to meet GLORES biodiversity standards, Marine Conservation Institute think that MPAs

need to be places with permanent or enduring protection in law and in fact. Temporary

fishery closures, temporary bans on fishing gears or temporary halts to dredging, filling or

mineral extraction do not make managed places MPAs, and without enduring protections

they do not merit designation as Global Ocean Refuges.

Governments that have done the right thing for marine biodiversity deserve special

appreciation as long as they maintain high standards, but we also want to incentivize

governments to create new MPAs that might qualify as Global Ocean Refuges. Duration is

one of Edgar et al’s (2014) key variables; older is better. MPAs in de jure and de facto

http://www.cbd.int/protected-old/PAME.shtml


existence as of 1 August 2014 deserve higher ranking (a bonus) over MPAs created after this

criterion was conceived. This is in keeping with the proverb (African or Chinese?): “The best

time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is now.”

Status ranking Criterion 5) Isolation The least and most surprising of Edgar et al (2014)’s 5 major factors for successful MPAs is

isolation. Does isolation mean there is limited emigration of life into unprotected habitats?

Or does it mean that marine biodiversity can survive only where people are largely absent?

Marine Conservation Institute thinks that the importance of isolation needs clarification

before it becomes a Global Ocean Refuge criterion.

Social science screens for Global Ocean Refuges 1) Encourages net benefits to local people (not only extractive users) in ways that are

consistent with accomplishing GLORES’ primary goal of saving marine biodiversity.

“Setting the bar” for Global Ocean Refuges If Global Ocean Refuges become the world’s shining examples of MPAs, where scientists set

the bar for Bronze, Silver or Gold status requires foresight, lest we cause unintended

consequences.

Setting a bar too low could mean that Global Ocean Refuges would have poor biological

outcomes, which would move people toward discounting Global Ocean Refuge status

specifically and MPAs in general. But setting the bar too high means that all but the most-

motivated governments might not seek Global Ocean Refuge status for their MPAs. Setting

the bar merits special emphasis in the GLORES Glasgow workshop.

Table 1 suggests possible standards for 3 levels of protection for discussion. Each site under

consideration that a) meets one of these levels, b) is adequately managed and enforced

(these are requirements, not ranking variables), and c) provides meaningful net

socioeconomic benefits for local communities (again, required, not a ranking variables) can

be scored for the following variables: location 50%; size 30%, isolation 20%.


Table 1. Pre-Workshop Exercise Please fill in the following table with whether or not you think the listed activity is

compatible with any of the proposed tiers of MPA designation, Gold > Silver > Bronze. If you

believe some types of an activity are or are not compatible please list those. For example if

you think bottom trawling should not be allowed in any Global Ocean Refuges, but other

forms of commercial fishing are you can state that. We would appreciate a copy of your

worksheet.

Gold Silver Bronze

Commercial fishing

Recreational fishing

Subsistence fishing

Nonsubsistence

spearfishing

Bioprospecting

Scientific collecting

Dredging

Filling

Dumping

Sand and gravel

mining

Other mining

Oil and gas

exploration or

production

Pipelines, cables

Elevated N or P in

natural inflow or

human discharges

Elevated noise

Anchoring

Vessels over 500 kg

must obey speed

limits

Tamperproof AIS

Other (add as many

as you think relevant)


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Appendix 1 Acronyms CBD UN Convention on Biological Diversity

EBSA Ecologically or Biologically Significant Area under the CBD

EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone

GLORES Global Ocean Refuge System

LEED Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design

MPA marine protected area, a place in the sea with enduring protection

NGO nongovernmental organization

POOP park only on paper

UNCLOS UN Convention on Law of the Sea

VLMPA very large marine protected area

draft global ocean refuge criteria from locales around the world make it difficult to conclude that...

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