Management

Ecological connectivity is the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes that sustain life on Earth.

Ancient Hawaiians developed sophisticated natural resource management systems that included various forms of spatial management. The state of Hawaiʻi established its first legislated marine protected area (MPA) in 1953, and today there exists a patchwork of spatial marine management strategies along a range of sizes, with varying levels of governance, enforcement, and effectiveness. Approximately 12% of waters within the 50 m depth contour and 5% of waters within state jurisdiction (≤3 nmi) have some form of marine management.

The Guide contains information about essential components and sub-components of marine spatial planning legislation, describing each and highlighting its role and significance. The Guide also provides examples of textual provisions from existing marine spatial planning laws and regulations, along with sample provisions prepared by the authors, to illustrate how legislative or regulatory language can address each component. Appendix A contains a list of marine spatial planning laws to which the legal drafter can refer.

One of the aims of the United Nations (UN) negotiations on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is to develop a legal process for the establishment of area-based management tools, including marine protected areas, in ABNJ. Here we use a conservation planning algorithm to integrate 55 global data layers on ABNJ species diversity, habitat heterogeneity, benthic features, productivity, and fishing as a means for highlighting priority regions in ABNJ to be considered for spatial protection.

This KBA report outlines key recommendations for the Government of Kiribati and its people for protecting its unique biodiversity and supporting sustainable livelihoods. A total of twenty-two island KBAs were identified and suggested for immediate management. Outlined below are the identified KBAs in order of their recommended priority rankings for each island group...The finding of Kiribati's KBA analysis provides a sound link to several significant ongoing and new initiatives within the environment division and at the national level.

Many areas outside national and regional protected area networks also contribute to the effective in-situ conservation of biodiversity. Appropriately recognising, reporting and supporting such areas is increasingly important in the context of biodiversity loss and climate change.

The 9th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas held in Suva, Fiji, December 2013 produced and adopted a new Framework for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas in the Pacific Islands Region 2014-2020.

The findings of this BIORAP survey have identified or re-confirmed the critical importance of the biodiversity and ecosystems of Nauru's terrestrial and marine environments and the urgent need for follow-up activities to manage and mitigate threats for their conservation.

To safeguard biodiversity effectively, marine protected areas (MPAs) should be sited using the best available science. There are numerous ongoing United Nations and nongovernmental initiatives to map globally important marine areas. The criteria used by these initiatives vary, resulting in contradictions in the areas identified as important. Our analysis is the first to overlay these initiatives, quantify consensus, and conduct gap analyses at the global scale.

Converting assemblages of marine protected areas (MPAs) into functional MPA networks requires political will, multidisciplinary information, coordinated action and time. We developed a new framework to assist planning environmental representativity in a network across the marine space of Portugal, responding to a political commitment to protect 14% of its area by 2020. An aggregate conservation value was estimated for each of the 27 habitats identified, from intertidal waters to the deep sea.