Simonetta Fraschetti Italian Association of Oceanography and Limnology, Census of Marine Life

1. 2010 Stock-taking and Tracking Progress in Establishing Networks of Marine Protected Areas and Achieving Reduction of Biodiversity Loss:how far are we? GLOBAL OCEANS CONFERENCE Simonetta Fraschetti Italian Association of Oceanography and Limnology, Census of Marine Life University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

2. The consequences of biodiversity loss - Human pressure on ecological systems often results in loss in resistance. - Dramatic shifts in species composition, known as phase or regime shifts, can be long lasting and almost irreversible: loss in resilience - Localized human perturbations combined with new threats such as climate change, invasive species and ocean acidification contribute to generate new regimes of disturbances that are expected to greatly affect the stability and productivity of marine coastal ecosystems

3. Conservation of marine environment Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are considered effective tools for the conservation and management of biodiversity. Expected effects: • causing density-dependent changes in life history traits • protecting the recruitment of commercially important species • protecting marine biodiversity (including genetic diversity) • causing ecosystem-wide effects such as trophic cascades • increasing community and ecosystem stability, thus promoting resilience and faster recovery from disturbance Worm et al. 2006. Science

4. MPAs can haltbiodiversity loss at local scale ?

6. MPAs can haltbiodiversity loss at large scale ?

7. Effective MPA networks 2012: deadline to establish representative, comprehensive and effectively managed MPA networks 2010: deadline to protect 10% of global ecoregions

8. Howtobeaneffective network? Representativeness: Adequate representation of all biodiversity typologies, physical structures and vital functional areas characteristic of the region. Connectivity: Distances between existing MPAs should ensure larval connectivity among them, providing opportunities to develop regional-scale MPA networks Legal framework: A specific planning process is required prior the beginning of the management of a MPA and it should produce an official Management Plan

9. Measuring progress toward globalmarine conservation targets Only 4.09% of continental shelf areas are incorporated within MPAs. Approximately half of all marine ecoregions have less than 1% MPA coverage across the shelf.

10. Representativeness to protect 10–30% of specific habitats by 2012 Globally consistent measures of habitat areas are essential to meaningful assessments of how we are faring with respect to international conservation targets for 2010 - 2012 We don’t know if the protected habitats are represented at regional scale Important habitats, often, are not included in the A zone: zonation is to be re-designed Spillover effect: it can be limited by a lack of continuous suitable habitat through the boundaries of the MPA

11. Connectivity: which distance to insure connectivity • USA: suggested size: 4-6 km diameter / about 20 km distance • Mediterranean Sea: long history of human use and high population density, difficult application of extra Mediterranean criteria

12. Legal framework: the needof a management plan • 42% MPAs there is a management plan in place for their MPA • 21% indicated that their management plan is under development • 29% respondents still have not developed any management plan Abdulla et al. 2008

13. The way forward • Reserves should be designed to achieve clear and quantifiable objectives, adequately monitored before and after establishment, to assess how well those objectives are achieved • To protect 10–30% of specific habitats by 2012: reliable estimates of the total area occupied by each habitat • Globally consistent measures of habitat areas are essential to meaningful assessments of how we are faring with respect to international conservation targets for 2010 – 2012 • MPAs must not be an alibi to treat unprotected marine habitat as we treated terrestrial ones • Ecosystem based Management: outside MPAs a thorough management of coastal resources is needed