“Illuminating the Benefits of Marine Protected Areas for Ecotourism, and Vice Versa.” The Current,news.ucsb.edu/2023/021282/illuminating-benefits-marine-protected-areas-ecotourism-and-vice-versa. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024.
Marine protected areas or MPAs are tools used to conserve 30% of oceans by 2023. MPAs protect habitats and promote species diversity. They also hold value for communities and industries. Researchers at UCSB found strong evidence of the benefit of MPAs for the scuba diving industry in southern California, the diving community could be stakeholders in MPAs future. The team at UCSB analyzed patterns from millions of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data points from for-hire scuba diving vessels to glean long-term insight into how MPAs shape ecotourism at large. They found that from 2016 to 2022, dive vessels engaged in ecotourism preferred MPAs and that dive vessels primarily conducting recreational lobster fishing preferred MPA border zones.
MPAs work not only to preserve habitats and promote species diversity but they may also help drive up ecotourism in Southern California. MPAs would therefore help marine life and local economies. I think MPAs are a very good tool in preserving ocean life, especially seeing how divers have reacted to them but work still needs to be done to let MPAs be compatible with fishing
Juliana- This is an uplifting article for sure. I assume the 30% of oceans protected is for the United States. If we could get that much protected globally it would be a huge game changer. It makes sense that scuba divers want to dive where there is cool diversity to see (I encourage you to do that some day- you’ll love it).
DId the article saying anything about scaling this program up? Is it possible to keep the fishing industry out of the protected area outside of the US? From what I understand, giving areas protection in the ocean allows a pretty quick rebound from nature.
Thanks for consistently delivering well written abstracts this year. Hope your topic kept you interested.
This is a very interesting topic. The best way we can protect the environment is by showing how we can work with the economy rather than against it. It is similar to the national park system in a way.