Restoration and Resilience

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) bring benefits for people and planet

Protecting Habitats

MPAs protect marine wildlife and important habitats, allowing them to thrive and be as healthy and natural as possible, with their own unique intrinsic value.

Financial Benefits

The increase in wildlife in MPAs can boost local economies through sustainable tourism, recreation and subsistance fisheries.

Building Resistance and Resilience

Healthy systems are better able to cope with disease outbreaks, global warming, pollution and increasing extreme weather events that we cannot always predict or prevent.

Food security

Fish populations increase within MPAs and spread beyond them, supporting local fisheries, which are an important source of food for millions of people.

Re-seeding the Oceans

Fish and their larvae thrive within MPAs, then spill out beyond the MPA boundaries to support neighbouring marine ecosystems and the wider environment.

Natural Wilderness

MPAs allow us to view, enjoy and research wildlife in its most natural state. This helps us to understand how natural systems work, and protect species that may have important future uses, such as potential medical cures.

Saving Ourselves

MPAs not only support our oceans and coasts, but also provide a range of often over-looked services such as storing carbon. Our oceans produce half the oxygen we breathe, and also absorb much of the CO² we produce.

Rivers and Estuaries

Rivers, wetlands and estuaries are an important part of the marine ecosystem – and the global climate cycle. All rivers flow toward the ocean, so these interstitial areas – where our oceans welcome rivers and meet land  – are crucial for life on  land and water.

The statistics are chilling.

An estimated 90% of global fish stocks have been over-exploited, and some 90% of large fish are already gone from our ocean waters. But when you restrict commercial fishing activities in protected areas, marine species are able to recover.