Feature Article
Failures in the design and implementation of management plans of Marine Protected Areas: An empirical analysis for the North-east Atlantic Ocean

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105178Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Delays in plan implementation are detrimental to Marine Protected Area performance.

  • A single plan managing several marine areas does not allow defining specific objectives.

  • Actively involving stakeholders in plan design is crucial for the success of a plan.

  • Renewal is essential to improve the management required for optimal area performance.

Abstract

The characteristics and duration of the processes occurring from the design and designation of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) to the effective implementation and renewal of its management plan were analysed in 234 MPAs from four countries in the North-east Atlantic Ocean (France, Portugal, Spain and England). These MPAs were managed by 118 plans and each one could be applied to between one and 11 MPAs, with a mean of 2 MPAs per plan. Of these plans, 81% had been implemented since 2000, motivated by the approval of different directives at the European and global levels that promoted important changes in national policies. Information about the design and implementation of each management plan was summarized through a questionnaire, and was analysed to describe the different phases of the design and implementation and determine the duration of each phase. Four main failures were identified in the design and implementation of plans: (i) Gaps between MPA designation and plan implementation, with a mean period of 10.9 years; (ii) only 70% of the analysed MPAs shared a plan; (iii) stakeholders were involved only in the revision phase of the plan design in 90% of the cases, while their involvement in the other critical design processes occurred in less than 30% of the cases; (iv) 39% of operating plans were not renewed on time and had a delay of 4 years on average, extending the duration of plans up to almost twice their planned 5- to 6-year duration. These failures represent clear shortcomings in MPA performance, because: (i) during the gap period the MPAs were “paper parks”; (ii) sharing a plan among MPAs does not allow to define specific objectives for every MPA involved; (iii) actively involving stakeholders in all phases from the development of the plan to its daily management is an important point for the long-term success of a plan; and (iv) plan renewal is an essential process to ensure the continuous improvement and innovation in management required for the good performance of a MPA.

Introduction

The establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is considered an important contribution to achieve a good marine environmental status. The challenge of establishing networks of MPAs and thereby protecting biodiversity and ecosystem function is recognised as an essential step by all EU marine and maritime policies. In fact, the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (Directive 2008/56/EC) establishes a framework to allow every Member State to take measures to maintain or achieve ‘good environmental status’ (GES) in the marine environment by 2020. In a context of overfishing, endangered species and habitat deterioration, MPAs are increasingly used as instruments for protection and management throughout the world's seas (Edgar et al., 2014). Moreover, MPAs are considered an affordable way to mitigate and promote adaptation to climate change (Roberts et al., 2017; EUROPARC España, 2018). In this sense, an exponential increase in the establishment of MPAs throughout the world, including the European Union (EU), has been observed in recent decades (Devillers et al., 2015; Batista and Cabral, 2016; Hopkins et al., 2016; Ban et al., 2017). However, establishment is only one aspect of MPA performance and effectiveness. Protected areas need to be managed effectively within the appropriate legal frameworks and governance structures in order to meaningfully contribute to improving the management of resources and ecosystem services, halting biodiversity loss and mitigating climate change impacts (Dudley et al., 2010; Leverington et al., 2010; Watson et al., 2014).

MPA establishment, management and operation are usually performed by national institutions, although the type of designation can be international or national (Hopkings et al., 2016; Jones et al., 2016). This makes MPAs dependent on the legislation and administrative mechanisms of each country, presenting great variability in these processes and strategies (IUCN, 2004; Jones et al., 2016). Most MPAs gather their management strategies in a Management Plan (hereafter plan), which is formally drawn in documents setting the management approach and goals, together with a framework for decision making, to be applied in the protected area for a specific period of time (Thomas et al., 2003; IUCN uses this definition). Plans may be more or less prescriptive, depending upon the purpose for which MPAs were created and the legal requirements to be met. The planning process, the plan's management objectives and the standards to be applied will usually be stated by legislation or otherwise established by protected area planners (Thomas et al., 2003).

This process varies greatly, following different steps depending on the country of application and on the type of MPA designation, and becomes slow in many cases. The long duration of this process has a negative impact on the success of the MPA (IUCN, 2004; Ministry of Fisheries and Department of Conservation, 2005), at least in the short term, because during the development of management plans, MPAs are not managed and work as ‘paper parks' (Rife et al., 2013; Halpern, 2014; Gallacher et al., 2016). The analysis of the duration of each implementation step and its relationship with recommended standards would allow identifying bottlenecks and potential improvements in the process.

The present study has two main objectives: (i) to describe the processes, estimate their duration, occurring from the design and designation of an MPA to the effective implementation and renewal of its management plan, and the cost of these processes in four countries of the North-east Atlantic Ocean: France, Portugal, Spain and England (UK); and (ii) to assess the compliance of the actual processes (phases, timing and duration, and participating actors) respect to established guidelines (national and international) defined to develop management plans. International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) guidelines were used as reference to analyse compliance. The IUCN guidelines are the most applied worldwide and all plans used in this study were in the geographic area of the OSPAR Convention. The compliance of the processes needed for the effective activation of MPAs has never been systematically evaluated for a geographical area and obviously failures could most possibly affect performance to a significant extent.

Section snippets

Study region and legal framework

The present study was focused on the MPAs located in the North-east Atlantic Ocean along the coast of mainland Portugal, the Spanish Atlantic coast (including Canary Islands), the French Atlantic coast from Cherbourg in the Channel (Basse-Normandie region) to the Spanish border, and the English coast (Fig. 1).

The OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic was established in 1992 (the annex on biodiversity and ecosystems was adopted in 1998). OSPAR

Temporal development of plans in the North-east Atlantic Ocean

Since the late 1980s, when the first plan for an Spanish MPA was implemented in the study area, there was an exponential increase in the total number of plans, and most of those plans, 81%, were implemented since the year 2000. A steady increase in the number of plans occurred in England from 1995, with a slight peak in implementations in the early 2000s. In France, the early 2000s were also a turning point in the creation of management plans, with an increase in the rate of creation that was

Discussion and conclusions

Most MPA guidebooks assume that an MPA is managed by its own plan (OSPAR Commission, 2003; Lausche, 2011; FAO, 2011), because each MPA is unique and its plan must be designed specifically to address its particular needs (IUCN, 2004). However, this typology 1, under our definition, occurred only in half of the studied cases in the North-east Atlantic Ocean (54%). The remaining cases presented more complex combinations, described as typologies 2 (24%) and 3 (21%).

Management plans are valuable

Acknowledgements

Funding for this study was granted by European cross-border programme INTERREG IV B through the MAIA project and co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The authors would like to extend deep gratitude for the support given by Miguel Henriques from Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas, Jan Maclennan from Natural England, Fanny le Fur from Agence des aires marines protégées and Malú Lledó and Teresa Ortega from KV Consultores.

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