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Debating The Effectiveness Of Marine Protected Areas, Linwood H. Pendleton, Gabby N. Ahmadia, Howard I. Browman, Ruth Thurstan, David M. Kaplan, Valerio Bartolino

VIMS Articles

Increasing the size and number of marine protected areas (MPAs) is widely seen as a way to meet ambitious biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Yet, debate still exists on the effectiveness of MPAs in achieving ecological and societal objectives. Although the literature provides significant evidence of the ecological effects of MPAs within their boundaries, much remains to be learned about the ecological and social effects of MPAs on regional and seascape scales. Key to improving the effectiveness of MPAs, and ensuring that they achieve desired outcomes, will be better monitoring that includes ecological and social data collected inside and outside …