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‘Unprecendented’ might be judged the most used adjective of 2020. The end of the year brought one more occasion to use the word, when the leaders of 14 countries put forward a new ocean action agenda underpinned by sustainably managing 100 per cent of national waters.

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About four years ago, Colin Simpfendorfer was diving on reefs in Indonesia’s picture-perfect Raja Ampat region when he noticed the distinct absence of something. “It’s a beautiful place to dive. We would have expected to see grey reef sharks and white tips,” says the veteran scientist.

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People in wealthy, industrialized countries are used to finding their supermarket shelves fully stocked. Yet for a brief period early in the COVID-19 pandemic, some of those shelves emptied out, as panic drove shoppers to stockpile and supply chains were interrupted.

A global network of marine protected areas for food

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are conservation tools that are increasingly implemented, with growing national commitments for MPA expansion. Perhaps the greatest challenge to expanded use of MPAs is the perceived trade-off between protection and food production. Since MPAs can benefit both conservation and fisheries in areas experiencing overfishing and since overfishing is common in many coastal nations, we ask how MPAs can be designed specifically to improve fisheries yields.