Article

 

The science of European marine reserves: Status, efficacy, and future needs Public Deposited

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/hd76s124n

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • The ecologically and socio-economically important marine ecosystems of Europe are facing severe threats from a variety of human impacts. To mitigate and potentially reverse some of these impacts, the European Union (EU) has mandated the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in order to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) in EU waters by 2020. The primary initiative for achieving GES is the implementation of coherent networks of marine protected areas (MPAs). Marine reserves are an important type of MPA in which no extraction is allowed, but their usefulness depends upon a number of ecological, management, and political factors. This paper provides a synthesis of the ecological effects of existing European marine reserves and the factors (social and ecological) underlying their effectiveness. Results show that existing European marine reserves foster significant positive increases in key biological variables (density, biomass, body size, and species richness) compared with areas receiving less protection, a pattern mirrored by marine reserves around the globe. For marine reserves to achieve their ecological and social goals, however, they must be designed, managed, and enforced properly. In addition, identifying whether protected areas are ecologically connected as a network, as well as where new MPAs should be established according to the MSFD, requires information on the connectivity of populations across large areas. The adoption of the MSFD demonstrates willingness to achieve the long-term protection of Europe's marine ecosystems, but whether the political will (local, regional, and continent wide) is strong enough to see its mandates through remains to be seen. Although the MSFD does not explicitly require marine reserves, an important step towards the protection of Europe's marine ecosystems is the establishment of marine reserves within wider-use MPAs as connected networks across large spatial scales.
  • Keywords: Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Spillover, Marine reserves, Marine protected areas, Conservation, Europe
Resource Type
DOI
Date Available
Date Issued
Citation
  • Fenberg P.B., Caselle J., Claudet J., Clemence M., Gaines S., García-Charton J.A., Gonçalves E., Grorud-Colvert K., Guidetti P., Jenkins S., Jones P.J.S., Lester S., McAllen R., Moland E., Planes S. and Sørensen T.K. (2012) The science of European marine reserves: status, efficacy and needs. Marine Policy 36(5), 1012-1021. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2012.02.021
Journal Title
Journal Volume
  • 36
Journal Issue/Number
  • 5
Academic Affiliation
Rights Statement
Funding Statement (additional comments about funding)
  • This publication stemmed from a workshop supported with funding from Natural England held in London in November 2010 for the Science of Marine Reserves project at The Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). This is publication number 413 from PISCO, a long-term ecological consortium, which is partially funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces

Relationships

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items