MPAs in the Mediterranean
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have proved their usefulness in the conservation of the marine environment and in restoring degraded habitats and depleted species populations. Their role in the economic and social development and in ensuring sustainable livelihood sources is being increasingly recognized. Setting up Protected Areas correctly allows the sustainable conservation of the natural heritage. The criteria that help elucidate the choice of new sites to form a representative network include: representativeness, resilience, shape and size of individual MPAs, connectivity, viability, permanence, replication and degree to which precautionary principles were invoked in designing individual MPAs.
The number of MPAs and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) in the Mediterranean Sea is 1,215 in 2016, covering 171,362 km2. This places a surface of 6.81% under a legal designation (Cf. MPA status report – 2016). These sites are established at national, regional or international level under a wide variety of designations.
2016
Advancing marine conservation, particularly through MPAs has been an important priority agenda in the Mediterranean, particularly for the past two decades. The Barcelona Convention through SPA/RAC played a convening role and an important umbrella for a multitude of MPA initiatives in the region, with several actors increasing their efforts to support the achievement of the global 2012 MPA target and the subsequent Aichi Target. In this regard, its Contracting Parties have adopted in 2009 a “Regional Working Programme for the Coastal and Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean Sea including the High Sea” that was supported in 2016 by a “Roadmap for a Comprehensive Coherent Network of Well-Managed MPAs to Achieve Aichi Target 11”.
SPA/RAC is actively supporting Eastern and Southern Mediterranean countries to increase their capacity to establish an ecologically coherent MPA network in the Mediterranean region mainly through:
- establishing coordination mechanisms for regional MPA management ;
- identification and planning of new MPAs to extend the regional network and enhance its ecological representativeness ;
- improving MPA management ;
- ensuring financial sustainability of regional and national MPA networks.
Regional Working Programme for MPAs
During their 14th ordinary meeting (Portoroz, Slovenia, November 2005) the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention invited SPA/RAC to elaborate a programme of work for the development of MPAs in the Mediterranean. This was aimed at supporting the Mediterranean countries to achieve the 2012 target of the CBD, of establishing a representative network of MPAs in the Mediterranean Sea.
SPA/RAC prepared the Regional Working Programme for the Coastal and Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean including the High Sea in consultation with the IUCN-Med , WWF-MedPO, MedPAN and ACCOBAMS.
The working programme identifies sets of criteria to create representative networks of MPAs in the Mediterranean Sea. It was adopted at the 16th meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention (Marrakech, Morocco, November 2009). It is composed of the following 4 elements:
- to assess the representativity and effectiveness of the existing Mediterranean network of marine and coastal protected areas.
- to make the Mediterranean network of marine and coastal protected areas more comprehensive and more representative of the ecological features of the region.
- to improve the management of the Mediterranean marine and coastal protected areas.
- to strengthen the protected area governance systems and further adapt them to national and regional contexts.
Roadmap to achieve Aichi Target 11 in the Mediterranean
On the global level, the CBD, which entered into force in 1993, sets conservation objectives to which Contracting Parties are committed. Specifically, during the 10th Conference of Parties in 2010, the Aichi Biodiversity targets were adopted as part of the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity. Aichi target 11 in particular states that “By 2020, at least " [...] 10 % of coastal and marine areas [...] are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures and integrated into the wider landscape and seascapes.”. The CBD also promotes the Ecosystem Approach, which is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources.
In 2016, COP 19 have adopted a Roadmap for a Comprehensive Coherent Network of Well-Managed MPAs to achieve Aichi Target 11 in the Mediterranean, as guidance to update and implement the Regional Working Programme for the Coastal and Marine Protected Areas in the Mediterranean including the High Sea.
This Roadmap is oriented towards achieving the following four objectives:
- Objective 1: Strengthen networks of protected areas at national and Mediterranean levels, including in the high seas and in ABNJ, as a contribution to the relevant globally agreed goals and targets.
- Objective 2: Improve the network of Mediterranean MPAs through effective and equitable management.
- Objective 3: Promote the sharing of environmental and socio-economic benefits of Mediterranean MPAs, and the MPAs integration into the broader context of sustainable use of the marine environment and the implementation of the ecosystem and marine spatial planning approaches.
- Objective 4: Ensure the stability of the network of Mediterranean MPAs by enhancing their financial sustainability.
About the “Specially” Protected Areas
The term "Specially Protected Areas" refers to a new approach to nature protection. The traditional objective of protecting areas, both marine and terrestrial, was the conservation of different elements of nature of particular value for people. For example, an area was protected for its importance as an habitat for a threatened or valuable species or a pristine site for its beauty and recreational value. This anthropocentric approach gradually changed in the last decades of the twentieth century, the turning point being marked by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro Conference). Thus began a new stage in the role played by protected areas as a protection tool. From now on, protected areas are intended to present a global legal and technical framework for protection that takes into account all its dimensions: the species, the environment and the human activities carried out in them. The protection of endangered species, once the main focus of nature conservation, is now only one part of the general protection of all biological diversity. Biodiversity and its sustainable use are becoming the central concepts of this new approach, both at sea and on land, while remaining within the framework of the principle of sustainable development set out at the Rio de Janeiro Conference.En savoir plus : UNEP(DEC)/MED WG.268/Inf.16
