Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a conservation tool designed to adequately manage and protect marine resources threatened by human activity by addressing both biological and socioeconomic needs. The Irish Sea is a busy waterway under the jurisdiction of six entities (Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland, England, and Wales). Within this body of water there are almost 200 conservation designations across 111 MPA sites, with many sites having multiple designations (national, EU, and international). Data is lacking on the effectiveness of these protected areas in reaching their conservation objectives due to sites being inadequately monitored. The race to meet the 10% marine protected area target set by the Conservation on Biological Diversity, however, may be compromising effective planning. Do multiple designations ensure better protection of the marine environment, or is the Irish Sea home to paper parks, offering little protection? Metadata compiled from the World Database on Protected Areas and conservation reports from MPA managers were used to investigate this question. The results show a positive correlation between the number of designations of a site and the existence of a publicly available management plan. The presence of a management plan was also linked to whether or not site assessments were conducted by the relevant authorities, and sites having multiple designations was weakly correlated with favourable assessment outcomes. The results of this study highlight the need to better understand the requirements of national, regional and international-level conservation designations and how they interact with each other.

海洋保护区（MPA）是一种养护工具，旨在通过满足生物和社会经济需求来充分管理和保护人类活动所威胁的海洋资源。爱尔兰海是一条繁忙的水路，由六个实体（北爱尔兰，爱尔兰共和国，马恩岛，苏格兰，英格兰和威尔士）管辖。在这片水域内，在111个MPA站点中有近200个保护标识，其中许多站点有多个标识（国家，欧盟和国际）。由于对地点的监测不足，因此缺乏有关这些保护区达到其保护目标的有效性的数据。但是，为达到《生物多样性保护公约》设定的10％海洋保护区目标而进行的竞赛可能会损害有效的规划。是指定多个名称来确保更好地保护海洋环境，还是爱尔兰海是纸公园的家，提供的保护很少？从保护区世界数据库汇编的元数据和MPA经理的保护报告被用来调查这个问题。结果表明站点的指定数量与可公开获得的管理计划之间存在正相关。管理计划的存在还与相关机构是否进行现场评估有关，并且具有多个名称的现场与良好的评估结果之间存在弱关联。这项研究的结果强调需要更好地了解国家，地区和国际一级的保护名称的要求以及它们如何相互影响。