The benefits of marine protected areas

Abstract

Overfishing, damaging pollution, habitat destruction and other impacts of human activities in the sea and from land are causing increasing damage to coastal and marine environments. Current management systems are failing to sustain the productivity, biological diversity and ecosystem services of marine ecosystems. The consequences of this failure are serious and far-reaching. The most obvious effect is seen in impacts on the longstanding and widespread use of marine resources for sea food. While the global fish catch stabilised briefly in the 1980s (Watson & Pauly 2001) it has since then been in consistent decline (Pauly et al 2002).