Survey Findings: Marine Connectivity Applications in MPAs
In 2021, the MCWG collaborated with experts around the world to develop Marine Connectivity Conservation ‘Rules of Thumb’ for MPA and MPA Network Design, which serves as a purpose-built tool for systematically incorporating connectivity conservation into marine environments globally. With this new tool serving as a baseline, MCWG sought constructive expert responses to further advance the field.
As part of its work in 2021, MCWG surveyed Marine Protected Area (MPA) managers, scientists, and practitioners around the world to gather information on ecological connectivity awareness and the practical applications of the new ‘Rules of Thumb’. Input was gathered from eight MPA networks internationally, including in North America, Central America, West Africa, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, Australia, and Western Pacific.
The survey consisted of two main portions: 1) applicability and challenges for the 13 ‘Rules of Thumb’, and 2) topics requiring further investigation. These included;
- Trends in marine connectivity conservation implementation concerning MPAs and MPA networks;
- Preferred methods for marine connectivity measurement for use in reporting metrics; and
- Funding sources used for implementing marine connectivity conservation in MPAs and MPA networks.
With fast-advancing science, policy, and technology related to marine and coastal environments, these insights provide valuable information about ways that high-level guidance like the ‘Rules of Thumb’ can inform meaningful action on the ground. The results also importantly shed light on challenges and opportunities for innovation within the field of marine connectivity conservation. Some of the key findings include:
- Rules of Thumb are 77% implementable across MPAs;
- MPA managers increased use of marine connectivity conservation in the past three years (11% to 49%), supporting further cause to advance the field of marine connectivity conservation;
- Perceived importance in connectivity conservation increased by 23% when future needs were considered;
- The largest barrier to Rule of Thumb implementation was ‘lack of knowledge to implement’, which is fixable through increasing education;
- The second largest barrier to implementation was ‘lack of funding’;
- Poor funder diversity indicates an opportunity to help MPA managers towards diversifying fund acquisition tactics for connectivity conservation;
- MPA managers tend to indicate more confidence in using; tagging, habitat suitability modeling, and habitat condition assessments to measure marine connectivity over using larval dispersal modeling, larval recruitment measurements, and genetic diversity sampling.