networks

Networks of MPAs and/or reserves are groups of protected areas that are spatially separated, but oceanographically connected. Collectively, these areas achieve conservation goals more effectively than a series of unconnected protected areas. Networks of MPAs and reserves can also be programatically connected, but these tend to be less successful at achieving conservation objectives unless they are also ecologically connected.

 

Logically, networks of MPAs and reserves can do more for biodiversity conservation than individual sites. The advantages of a functional network over individual or randomly placed MPAs and reserves include:

• Ensuring that the most valuable marine habitats are at least partially protected;
• Ensuring that threatened, vulnerable or overexploited species of a given area will have adequate habitat space in order to continue reproducing;
• Ensuring that some of the fish larvae ”exported” from one MPA can settle safely within their dispersal range;
• Enhancing fisheries production for a given management area because the larval production and dispersal and fish spillover effects are maximized through planning;
• Building capacity in MPA management across individual MPA management bodies;
• Creating a shared information base for all of the MPAs in an area or network that helps in making informed management choices;
• Providing a logical reason for individual MPA managers and stakeholders to coordinate with each other to share experiences; and
• Providing a mechanism for financial and administrative partnering between individual MPA management bodies and other institutions

MPAs and reserves in an ecologically-based network connect and interact through ecological linkages, which include:

• Adjacent or continuous habitats (coral reefs and seagrass beds);
• Movement of larvae, or young, between and within MPAs;
• Movements of adult fishes or invertebrates between and within MPAs.

MPAs connected in a programmatic network (which may or may not include ecologicall linkages) may be linked because of:

• Shared authorities or parent programs (such as Europe’s Natura 2000 network or the fourteen sites in the United States’ National Marine Sanctuary Program);
• Shared national origins (such as the U.S. larger national system of MPAs, which includes National Marine Sanctuaries among several hundred other MPAs managed by other programs);
• Shared conservation goals (such as areas managed for protection of a specific species or habitat); and
• Shared stakeholders or resources (such as transboundary MPAs).

The same applies to marine reserves. In many places, a single marine reserve that is large enough to protect all habitats may be impractical because of geography or the possibility of initial socioeconomic impacts. For example, a large reserve might cause fishermen to have to travel greater distances to fishing sites, incurring greater costs to them. Establishing an ecological network of several small- or medium-sized marine reserves in a region, rather than one or two large reserves, can be a viable alternative I some cases to meet established goals while reducing the negative social or economic impacts of a single large reserve.

 A major socioeconomic benefit of a marine reserve network is that fishing and other human activities can occur between the reserves instead of being excluded from one large area. Young fishes and invertebrates generally are less vulnerable to fishing due to their small size, so at least a portion may disperse safely among the reserves, providing a source of young for reserves and fished areas outside. Reserve networks can also provide insurance because a catastrophe that harms populations and habitats in one marine reserve (such as a hurricane or oil spill) may not affect other reserves.

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