Expanding the world's marine protected areas (MPAs) by around 5% can boost future fish catch by at least 20%, a study suggests. Several governments have begun to set aside large portions of their exclusive economic zones for protection, but many fisheries stakeholders perceive the expansion of MPAs as a threat to commercial productivity. Reasoning that the allocation of MPAs can increase yield in an overfished fishery, Reniel Cabral, Enric Sala, Steven Gaines, and colleagues investigated whether a similar approach could be scaled up and applied to overfished areas across the globe. The authors compiled data for 1,338 commercially important fish stocks and designed a fish-catch-optimized global MPA network. The model revealed that expanding MPAs by 5% to revitalize overfished and poorly managed fisheries leads to substantial spillover effects--surfeits of adult fish and larvae that leave protected habitats for adjacent unprotected waters. These gains amounted to an additional 9-12 million metric tons of fish catch annually, or an increase of at least 20%, compared with a scenario of no additional protection. The study suggests that MPAs can restore and protect biodiversity and help secure future food security, according to the authors.
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Article #20-00174: "A global network of marine protected areas for food," by Reniel B. Cabral et al.
MEDIA CONTACTS: Reniel B. Cabral, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA; tel: 805-418-0984; e-mail: rcabral@bren.ucsb.edu ; Enric Sala, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC; email: esala@ngs.org ; Steven D. Gaines, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA; email: gaines@ucsb.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences