Connect: GRID-Arendal Annual Report 2017

Planning the right 10%

In the past few years there has been a rapid increase in the declaration of new marine protected areas around the globe. This increase is driven by countries rushing to fulfil their commitment under the Convention of Biological Diversity Aichi Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals to protect 10 percent of coastal and marine areas by 2020.

But are these protected areas truly fulfilling this commitment? Aichi Target 11, for instance, states that these protected areas should include areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services. They should also be ecologically representative. So, is just having 10 percent of a country’s marine jurisdiction in protected areas sufficient? How do we know which is the right 10 per cent?

Over the last few years, GRID-Arendal’s Marine Spatial Planning programme has been tackling this issue. In 2014 we released a global map of seafloor geomorphology – that is a map of all the large physical features on the seafloor including seamounts, canyons, ridges, the continental shelf and the abyssal plains. In all 29 different features were mapped and the results can be found on the Blue Habitats website (www.bluehabitats.org). We are using this map in conjunction with global data on seagrasses, mangroves and marine protected areas to analyse what is in marine protected areas. By using these data sets, we get a better understanding of where the different areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services are located. Only then can we check whether these areas are adequately represented in marine protected areas, such as those in

With two years to go until 2020, now is a good time to begin asking (and answering) these questions.

It is often said that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the seafloor. If this is true, how can we know what is within the boundaries of our marine protected areas?

Protected Area Impact Map Virtual Research Environment developed through the Horizon 2020 BlueBRIDGE project.

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