marine protected areas

The pandemic was good for Hanauma Bay

October 8, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Hanauma Bay is a marine sanctuary near Honolulu that is a popular snorkeling spot and is home to vibrant marine life and well-preserved corals. Its popularity grew in the 1970’s and 1980’s and its visitor attendance peaked at an estimated 10,000 people a day. A new management plan in 1990 reduced visitation, improved facilities, established an education program, and banned the feeding of fish. In 2019, average daily attendance was still about 3,000 people – about a million a year – and the impact on the reef ecosystem was considerable.

In 2020, because of the Covid pandemic, the preserve was completely closed to the public for seven months. This provided a unique natural experiment to study the effect of removing human interference from a natural ecosystem.

Researchers from the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology found that the reef in Hanauma Bay quickly returned to having better water quality, more monk seal sightings, greater fish abundance, and significant changes in fish behavior. The fact that the ecosystem responded quickly indicated that everyday human presence can have a real and measurable effect on reef health.

The research serves as a valuable case study for marine managers around the world. Putting limits on the number of visitors to reefs – especially those that are currently unregulated – could help restore lost ecological function and reduce human-induced pressure while still maintaining access. Tourism to reefs generates billions of dollars annually, so there needs to be ways to protect reefs without making them entirely off limits.

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When crowds left, reefs came alive at Hanauma Bay

Photo, posted December 13, 2011, courtesy of Dalton Reed via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Better Marine Protected Areas | Earth Wise

August 17, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Marine protected areas are regions of seas, oceans, estuaries, and in the US, the Great Lakes, that are afforded special protections. MPAs restrict human activity for conservation purposes, generally in order to protect natural or possibly cultural resources. MPAs may limit such things as development, fishing practices, fishing seasons, catch limits, moorings, and removal or disruption of marine life.

A new study by the University of Plymouth in the UK looked at the effectiveness of MPAs in increasing the total abundance of reef species. It looked at the MPAs in Lyme Bay, off the south coast of England, where two of them are co-located but governed by different constraints.

The study found that whole-site management of an MPA can increase the total abundance of reef species within its borders by up to 95%. This is in contrast to the MPA where only known features are conserved and human activity is otherwise allowed to continue unchecked. In that place, species abundance increased by only 15%.

The whole-site MPAs were observed to have other benefits as well. They show higher levels of functional redundancy, meaning that when there are species losses, they are compensated by other species. Whole-site MPAs also exhibit higher levels of species diversity.

MPAs are increasingly being recognized as a sustainable way to enhance the marine environment even while supporting coastal communities. The Global Ocean Alliance, a 72-country alliance led by the UK, has set a target of protecting 30% of all marine areas by 2030. The new study shows that even more important than simply establishing marine protected areas, it is essential that they are effectively implemented.

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Whole-site management of Marine Protected Areas can lead to a 95% increase in reef species

Photo, posted October 28, 2011, courtesy of Benjamin Evans via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Environmental DNA | Earth Wise

August 5, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Marine protected areas are sections of the ocean where governments place limits on human activity. They are intended to provide long-term protection to important marine and coastal ecosystems. MPAs are important because they can protect depleted, threatened, rare, and endangered species and populations.

In January 2020, the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean created one of the world’s largest marine protected areas. The Palau National Marine Sanctuary covers 80% of the country’s economic zone and prohibits all extractive activity like fishing and mining over a 183,000 square mile area in order for the island nation to ensure its food security and grow its economy in the face of climate change.

The Marine Sanctuary is an ambitious enterprise. The question is how Palau can evaluate whether and how well it is working?

A team of scientists from Stanford University and Palau-based colleagues are making use of Environmental DNA – or eDNA – technology to monitor the large-scale marine protected area. eDNA is the cells, waste, viruses, and microorganisms that plants and animals leave behind. Samples of marine eDNA effectively provide a fingerprint of the organisms that have recently passed through the water in a given area. This gives scientists a way to assess an ecosystem’s biodiversity and keep track of the types of species inhabiting a specific area. Using eDNA, it is possible to keep track of all the organisms that live below the surface and learn about things we can’t even see.

The team has embarked on a program of periodic sampling of the waters off Palau and hope to be able to monitor the results of establishing the Marine Sanctuary.

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eDNA: Bringing biodiversity to the surface

Photo, posted June 12, 2013, courtesy of Gregory Smith via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Recovering Marine Life By 2050 | Earth Wise

May 27, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Marine life has faced challenges for a long time. There have been centuries of overfishing in many places and pollution of various types has been especially harmful in recent decades. But despite all of this, a new scientific review published in the journal Nature contends that marine life in the world’s oceans could be fully restored in as little as 30 years provided that aggressive conservation policies are adopted.

The research spotlights the strong resiliency of ocean animals and cites the successful recovery of a number of marine species, including humpback whales.

The study indicates that nations around the world must agree to designate 20 to 30 percent of the oceans as marine protected areas, institute sustainable fishing guidelines, and regulate pollution. These measures would not come cheaply. The estimated cost would be around $20 billion a year.

However, the report also estimates that the economic return on this investment would be tenfold and would create millions of new jobs. Rebuilding fish stocks and maintaining sustainable fishing policies could increase global profits of the seafood industry by over $50 billion a year. Conserving coastal wetlands could save the insurance industry more than $50 billion a year as well by reducing storm damage.

A major sticking point, however, is climate change. Climate change is increasing ocean temperatures and driving acidification. Unless these changes are brought under control, the restoration of marine life is not going to be successful. We have reached the point where it is within our power to choose between a future with a resilient and vibrant ocean or an irreversibly disrupted ocean. Whether we embrace that challenge remains to be seen.

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Marine Life Could Recover By 2050 With the Right Policies, Study Finds

Photo, posted April 20, 2012, courtesy of Matthias Hiltner via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Giant Marine Preserve | Earth Wise

May 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Seychelles islands are located east of Kenya, near the equator. Its beautiful beaches, virgin jungles, thriving coral reefs, and UNESCO-listed nature reserves are among the many attractions of the archipelago’s 115 islands. The larger inner islands are quite developed for tourists, studded with many luxurious five-star resorts. The natural wonders of the Seychelles are clearly its prime asset.

Given this, the Seychelles have now established 154,000 square miles of marine protected areas, fulfilling a pledge to protect nearly a third of its vast territorial waters. This is an area twice the size of Great Britain.

About half of the newly protected areas will be “no-take zones” in which economic activity such as fishing and mining will be prohibited. Only limited economic activities will be permitted in the other half of the protected areas.

The President of the Seychelles signed the decree establishing the marine reserve in mid-March. The reserve will help protect the nation’s fisheries resources and safeguard a host of species including endangered sea turtles, sharks, and the Indian Ocean’s last remaining population of dugongs, which are marine mammals similar to manatees.

The funding for managing and protecting the new marine reserves will come from what is termed a debt-for-nature deal. It is an agreement that was worked out with the help of The Nature Conservancy that allows the country to restructure nearly $22 million in foreign debt in exchange for protecting marine resources and enacting climate adaptation measures.

This major expansion of the Seychelles’ marine protected area is a major step in the conservation of the archipelago’s biodiversity. The success of that conservation will ultimately depend upon enforcement, public-private partnerships, and innovative management.

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Seychelles Creates a Marine Reserve Twice the Size of Great Britain

Photo, posted October 22, 2017, courtesy of Falco Ermet via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Sea Turtle Populations Are Rebounding

November 7, 2017 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The increasing disappearance of so many plants and animals around the world has made many scientists believe that we are experiencing a sixth mass extinction. Despite ongoing conservation efforts, living things are struggling with habitat loss, climate change, and many other natural and man-made pressures. Conservation success stories seem to be rare events.