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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are conservation tools intended to protect biodiversity, promote healthy and resilient marine ecosystems, and provide societal benefits. Despite codification of MPAs in international agreements, MPA effectiveness is currently undermined by confusion about the many MPA types and consequent wildly differing outcomes. We present a clarifying science-driven framework—The MPA Guide—to aid design and evaluation. The guide categorizes MPAs by stage of establishment and level of protection, specifies the resulting direct and indirect outcomes for biodiversity and human well-being, and describes the key conditions necessary for positive outcomes. Use of this MPA Guide by scientists, managers, policy-makers, and communities can improve effective design, implementation, assessment, and tracking of existing and future MPAs to achieve conservation goals by using scientifically grounded practices.

The acceleration of global warming and increased vulnerability of marine social-ecological systems affect the benefits provided by the ocean. Spatial planning of marine areas is vital to balance multiple human demands and ensure a healthy ocean, while supporting global ocean goals. To thrive in a changing ocean though, marine spatial planning (MSP) must effectively integrate climate change. By reviewing existing literature on MSP and climate change, we explore the links between them and with ocean sustainability, highlight management challenges, and identify potential pathways to guide action towards the effective integration of climate impacts in MSP. A review of marine spatial planning literature identifies links with climate change and gaps in the practical integration of both concepts.

Rarely is the strong link that exists between Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) explicitly recognised. MSP is the process by which the use of marine space is identified and used to inform development decisions made by regulators. Marine areas that are important for marine conservation/ecology form one of the most common data layers within marine plans. Some of these marine areas will be formally adopted/designated and have legal protection as MPAs; other marine areas may be protected culturally or through informal agreements. Where MPAs do not exist, marine plans can aid in the identification of areas where they could be sited optimally (taking into account environmental, social, economic and political considerations). MPAs and marine plans are generally based on current information, be it habitat/species distribution or marine uses; however, both marine plans and MPAs may be used as tools to drive future sustainable use of the marine environment. This requires recognising existing uses and identifying how these uses may be affected by climate change, economic development, marine users' social licence to operate and also how the government of the day sees the future use of its seas.

The Adriatic and Ionian Region is an important area for both strategic maritime development and biodiversity conservation in the European Union (EU). However, given that both EU and non-EU countries border the sea, multiple legal and regulatory frameworks operate at different scales, which can hinder the coordinated long-term sustainable development of the region. Transboundary marine spatial planning can help overcome these challenges by building consensus on planning objectives and making the trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and its influence on economically important sectors more explicit. We address this challenge by developing and testing 4 spatial prioritization strategies with the decision-support tool Marxan, which meets targets for biodiversity conservation while minimizing impacts to users. We evaluated these strategies in terms of how priority areas shift under different scales of target setting (e.g., regional vs. country level). We also examined the trade-off between cost-efficiency and how equally solutions represent countries and maritime industries (n = 14) operating in the region with the protection-equality metric. We found negligible differences in where priority conservation areas were located when we set targets for biodiversity at the regional versus country scale. Conversely, the prospective impacts on industries, when considered as costs to be minimized, were highly divergent across scenarios and biased the placement of protection toward industries located in isolation or where there were few other industries. We recommend underpinning future marine spatial planning efforts in the region through identification of areas of national significance, transboundary areas requiring cooperation between countries, and areas where impacts on maritime industries require careful consideration of the trade-off between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic objectives.

Planning for marine areas, from coastal to open-ocean regions, is being developed worldwide to foster sustainable ocean management and governance. Over the past decades, significant progress has been made by governments in their thinking about marine spatial planning (MSP). MSP is globally widespread and a topic of increasing importance in the scientific and policy realms. It is currently under development in almost 70 countries, encompassing six continents and four ocean basins. Despite its acceptance and use, development and implementation of MSP still faces a myriad of present and future, conceptual and practical challenges, some of them being more striking and widespread. Here, we highlight seven major challenges that need to be properly addressed so that MSP can truly contribute to a sustainable use of the world's oceans. These include, among others, shortcomings in political and institutional frameworks, stakeholder engagement, encompassing human and social dimensions in MSP, balancing economic development and marine ecosystem conservation, and adapting to global environmental change.

Planning of marine areas is being developed worldwide to foster sustainable ocean management and governance. Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process that aims to organize the use of the ocean space, as well as the interactions among human uses (e.g., fisheries, aquaculture, shipping, tourism, renewable energy production) and between users and the marine environment. Over the past 30 years, significant progress has been made by governments in their thinking about MSP. The MSP is currently under development in over 66 countries (44% of the nations with marine waters), encompassing six continents and four ocean basins, and the interest in MSP continues to grow. While most countries are still in the early phase of their MSP initiatives, others have already approved, implemented, or even revised marine spatial plans for many years. Despite its acceptance and use, development and implementation of MSP still faces several conceptual and practical challenges, from political to institutional, social, economic, scientific, and environmental sources. The present chapter provides a review on all these topics by addressing three main questions: what is MSP and why is it needed; what is the global distribution of MSP around the world, together with its state of development by region; and what are some of the most prominent and widespread challenges, present and future, that are linked to the development of MSP?

The assessment and mapping of ecosystem services (ES) has become an increasingly important instrument for environmental management and conservation priority-setting. As such, this practice can be used in ecosystem-based Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). MSP is recognized as an opportunity to achieve socio-economic and ecological goals simultaneously, to suggest solutions for sustainable management of marine environment and its resources. In this study, we propose an operational approach that includes novel spatial analysis in the marine field to quantify and map supporting ecosystem services. Such approach spans the 3D-dimension of the marine environment, considering all marine domains (sea surface, water column, seabed) separately. Our approach is focused on mapping supporting ES of the Adriatic Sea, to grant their preservation in order to guarantee the delivery of all other ES. Supporting ES provision in the Adriatic was quantified through the use of indicators that denote ES delivery and that are specifically related to the three marine domains. We identified areas of elevated provisioning levels of multiple supporting ES in the Adriatic, which is hypothesized to be priority areas of conservation. Our results confirm the importance of explicitly including the pelagic domain in planning and conservation processes. Areas that provide the lowest levels of supporting ES delivery were also mapped, to indicate possible ‘sacrificial areas’ for industrial or intensive use. The spatial coincidence of the determined hotspots areas of ES delivery associated with particular marine areas that are and are not under conservation regimes was analysed. This approach led us to test the applicability of the method for identifying marine areas for conservation purposes. Our methodological approach aims at producing relevant scientific knowledge for prioritizing marine conservation and sustainable management actions, to be used in MSP and marine management.

1. The use of targets to provide measurable objectives and benchmarks for management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems is commonplace. In the marine and coastal realms, targets have been successful in setting sustainable limits to fisheries harvests, thresholds for pollutants, and recommended amounts of representative habitat included in marine protected area (MPA) networks. Quantifiable targets can dissuade governments from making dubious claims about investments in ocean protection that sound impressive but cannot be verified. Examples are presented where protection targets have been used successfully for marine management, and instances where measurable and meaningful benchmarks serve to allow tracking of true progress. 2. However, the setting of targets can also be a double-edged sword. In some cases, targets have proven useful, but in many instances, interventions made to fulfil targets not only give a false illusion of progress or even success, they present opportunity costs that impede further conservation. 3. Some of these issues were raised in the 2003 article ‘Dangerous Targets?: Unresolved issues and ideological clashes around marine protected areas’ that appeared in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. Since its publication, the article’s warnings about how targets can sometimes be dangerous and counter-productive have led to intense debate among scientists and policy-makers alike, and the paper has been cited in more than 500 publications. Yet today, more than a dozen years after the first ‘Dangerous Targets’ publication, new targets are driving more MPA designations and conservation strategies than ever before, and the ‘dangerous’ aspects of target setting have been largely ignored. 4. This paper discusses old ‘dangers’ in the context of new developments in marine conservation, including the lingering problem of having simplistic metrics drive marine policies, and the unintended result that can often occur when outputs (percentage of area under MPA designation) do not align with true outcomes of effective management and conservation. Newly emerging ‘dangers’ in letting areal targets (percentage of area under MPA designation) drive MPA designations are also discussed, including how the rush to fulfil obligations to protect a certain proportion of area is taking place in planning, separate from broader level, and potentially more holistic, marine spatial planning (MSP). 5. The paper suggests five recommendations that would allow policy-makers to use targets more effectively, including: (1) increase transparency in planning, especially around specific goals and objectives of MPA establishment; (2) use time-based areal targets when representativity is a goal of the protected area strategy; (3)

Migratory marine species (MMS) include many of the world's most charismatic organisms such as marine mammals, seabirds, turtles, sharks, and tuna. Many are now among the most threatened due to the diverse range of pressures they encounter during their extensive movements. This paper shows that 21% of MMS are classified as threatened (i.e. categorized as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable). Sea turtles are the most threatened group (85%), followed by seabirds (27%), cartilaginous fish (26%), marine mammals (15%) and bony fish (11%). Taken together 48% of MMS are threatened, Near Threatened or Data Deficient. As well as being threatened they share in common being wide-ranging animals, travelling through the waters of multiple nations as well as in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) during different times of the year. This makes their conservation a challenge, requiring coordinated action by many nations, international organizations, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and other stakeholders if their populations are to recover to healthy levels and be safeguarded into the future. Even though they are wide-ranging, long-term studies reveal considerable site fidelity and well-defined habitats for many species and areas. These sites are prime candidates for enhanced management such as via Marine Protect Area (MPA) designations. However, existing management frameworks do not yet contribute sufficiently to MMS conservation, MPA networks need to be expanded to capture key areas, in many cases through the application of new dynamic management techniques such as time area closures. Data on the distribution, abundance, behaviours and threats faced by many MMS are now available. These data should be used to inform the design of effective management regimes, such as MPAs, both within and beyond national jurisdictions. MEAs should ensure a full complement of MMS are included within species listings, and encourage further action to safeguard their populations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Over 1.3 billion people live on tropical coasts, primarily in developing countries. Many depend on adjacent coastal seas for food, and livelihoods. We show how trends in demography and in several local and global anthropogenic stressors are progressively degrading capacity of coastal waters to sustain these people. Far more effective approaches to environmental management are needed if the loss in provision of ecosystem goods and services is to be stemmed. We propose expanded use of marine spatial planning as a framework for more effective, pragmatic management based on ocean zones to accommodate conflicting uses. This would force the holistic, regional-scale reconciliation of food security, livelihoods, and conservation that is needed. Transforming how countries manage coastal resources will require major change in policy and politics, implemented with sufficient flexibility to accommodate societal variations. Achieving this change is a major challenge – one that affects the lives of one fifth of humanity.

A method is described for rapid multidisciplinary environmental assessment of coastal areas within the conceptual framework of comprehensive management of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The aim is to provide tools for the selection, design and management of coastal MPAs when time, budget or potential human pressures, either alone or in combination, create an urgent need for prioritisation. Maximising results and minimising cost and time is the goal, using a methodology that re evaluates existing information on the area, allows use of physical, environmental and socio-economic indicators, and finally integrates information in a Geographic Information System capable of generating outputs in the form of thematic maps to support managers. The final products obtained inform planners and managers about the study areas, across multiple aspects that all need to be considered in integrated coastal management. Although originally proposed for widespread use in the Mediterranean, this methodology can be flexibly adapted, with minor modifications in the selection of indicators, for its use in other regions. The results show its potential for merging and synthesising information not only as a tool in Rapid Assessment Programs but also as a tool for facing management of wide coastal areas as social-ecological ecosystems.

Although significant advancements on protecting marine biodiversity and ecosystems of the Mediterranean Sea have been made, much remains to be done to achieve the targets set by the Convention for Biological Diversity (and the Barcelona Convention) and ratified by the 21 Mediterranean governments. Particularly, these targets require the design and implementation of an ecologically representative network of marine protected areas that covers 10% of the Mediterranean surface by 2020. Despite the many efforts to gather spatial information about threats to the Mediterranean and conservation planning initiatives that identify sensitive areas for conservation, we are far from achieving this target. In this paper, we briefly review existing and proposed conservation initiatives at various scales throughout the Mediterranean to recognise those that have political endorsement and those that serve more as lobbying tools. We then propose a model process that can be applied to advance marine spatial planning within the eleven ecologically and biologically significant areas (EBSAs) through a multi-step process designed for moving conservation forward in this particularly complex region. The proposed process combines tenets of professional urban/regional planning and systematic conservation planning. As shown with two specific examples, despite some conventional wisdom, there is enough information on the Mediterranean Sea to move forward with ecosystem-based marine spatial management for conservation purposes using the EBSAs as a starting point - and the time is right to do so.

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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have gained increasing popularity worldwide as tools for biodiversity conservation and management of human uses. This rise in popularity has been accompanied by an increasing body of scientific papers and books on MPA design and management, the vast majority of which are almost completely focused on coastal or insular MPAs. A small number of MPAs have also been established in the pelagic domain, however, these pelagic sites have been considered in isolation from coastal/insular MPAs, even when the sites are adjacent or nearby. Pelagic and coastal ecosystems are not at all isolated from each other, but interconnected both physically via the flow of water, and biologically, via the movement of organisms. In order to maximize the effectiveness of MPAs, it is suggested that spatial management planning encompass large areas that span both coastal and pelagic domains. This requires integrated, large-scale spatial management, which may extend across borders and thus require international cooperation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A blind faith in the ability of MPAs to counteract loss of biodiversity is fraught with risk, especially when MPAs are poorly planned and when the consequences of establishing MPAs are not adequately thought out. MPA shortcomings are categorized as one of five main types: (1) MPAs that by virtue of their small size or poor design are ecologically insufficient; (2) inappropriately planned or managed MPAs; (3) MPAs that fail due to the degradation of the unprotected surrounding ecosystems; (4) MPAs that do more harm than good due to displacement and unintended consequences of management; and (5) MPAs that create a dangerous illusion of protection when in fact no protection is occurring. A strategic alternative, which fully utilizes the strengths of the MPA tool while avoiding the pitfalls, can overcome these shortcomings: integrating marine protected area planning in broader marine spatial planning and ocean zoning efforts.

Baird harnessed the latest technology to improve the beach while minimizing environmental impacts and improving habitat wherever possible at a west coast location in Barbados. Baird used an Echoscope to precisely map bathymetry, living reef, and voids in relic reef. Following numerical and physical modeling, underwater structures for beach stabilization were specifically designed to accommodate coral transplants and lab grown corals. This first phase of shoreline stabilization creates new opportunities for enhancement, training, and education. Subsequent monitoring of biodiversity will measure the rate of reef recovery. Turbidity monitoring, as well as rainfall and surface run-off rates, will provide much needed information regarding the relative impacts of wave sediment resuspension and surface run-off on coral health.

Abdulla, A., Gomei, M., Hyrenbach, D., Notarbartolo-di-Sciara, G., and Agardy, T. 2009. Challenges facing a network of representative marine protected areas in the Mediterranean: prioritizing the protection of underrepresented habitats. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 22–28. The high endemism of the Mediterranean Sea provides strong motivation to develop a comprehensive plan for the conservation of its biodiversity and the management of its marine resources. Increasingly, this ecosystem-level approach calls for a comprehensive network of marine protected areas (MPAs) representative of the richness and diversity of this shared basin. Today, Mediterranean MPAs do not represent the diverse geography and habitats in the region. Despite a recent declaration on trawling restrictions in deep waters (>1000 m), there are no true deep-sea Mediterranean MPAs. All but one (98.9%) of the 94 marine areas currently under some type of protection or management are coastal. Moreover, 69 (73.4%) are located along the basin's northern shore, highlighting the lack of MPAs in the south and east coasts. Yet, these underrepresented regions and habitats are ecologically distinctive by virtue of their particular oceanographic and biogeographic conditions. We identify several obstacles to Mediterranean MPA implementation and discuss how they can be overcome through strategic MPA network planning, contending that regional disparities in governance, institutional structures, wealth distribution, social capital, and availability of ecological data are responsible for discrepancies in the establishment and effectiveness of MPAs in this region.

As oil and gas become increasingly difficult to recover, as geopolitics complicate the access to both the resources and the markets for such energy products, and as existing supplies in accessible areas diminish, interest in renewables is on the increase. Ocean renewables support energy independence by utilizing an abundant domestic resource for electricity generation while creating jobs, supporting economic development, and diversifying the electric generating portfolio. Attempts have been made to harness the enormous energy potential of moving ocean water for decades. Oceanic wind is a preferred alternative to other forms of energy generation in areas where land is in short supply, and where coastal winds are sustained and strong. Ocean thermal energy conversion also has spin-off benefits, including air conditioning, chilled-soil agriculture, aquaculture, and desalination. Salinity gradient or osmotic power is generated by the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water that exists in estuaries around the world.

While conservationists, resource managers, scientists and coastal planners have recognized the broad applicability of marine protected areas (MPAs), they are often implemented without a firm understanding of the conservation science } both ecological and socio-economic } underlying marine protection. The rush to implement MPAs has set the stage for paradoxical differences of opinions in the marine conservation community. 2. The enthusiastic prescription of simplistic solutions to marine conservation problems risks polarization of interests and ultimately threatens bona fide progress in marine conservation. The blanket assignment and advocacy of empirically unsubstantiated rules of thumb in marine protection creates potentially dangerous targets for conservation science. 3. Clarity of definition, systematic testing of assumptions, and adaptive application of diverse MPA management approaches are needed so that the appropriate mix of various management tools can be utilized, depending upon specific goals and conditions. Scientists have a professional and

As the role of marine protected areas as conservation tools becomes better understood and more sophisticated, their planning becomes more complicated. Systematic, objective approaches to site selection and design can help reconcile conflicting interests, represent stakeholders' viewpoints fairly and evenly, and extend the scope of planning studies from single reserves to networks. We illustrate the use of spatial multiple- criteria analysis for determining the suitability of marine areas for different uses and levels of protection. This technique couples geographic information systems (GIS) for land assessment and evaluation with a for- mal statement of the design priorities as seen from the different viewpoints of all involved stakeholders. The planning process, while staying focused on the main purposes of conservation and feasibility, involves all the main interest groups in the definition of priorities so that conflicts and tensions are kept under control. We used multiple-criteria analysis to integrate objective data with the contrasting priorities of different stake- holders in the planning of a marine protected area. The results of the analysis can be used to define an opti- mal spatial arrangement of different protection levels. As a case study, we developed a zoning plan for one of the first marine protected areas in Italy, the Asinara Island National Marine Reserve.

A rapid assessment was carried out on the Greater Amanzule wetlands in Ghana to assess the types and conditions of mangroves and associated ecosystem services (e.g. carbon sequestration, wood collection and tourism) for determining the potential for payment for ecosystem services (PES). A combination of stakeholder discussions and on-the-ground surveys was used to gather information on 18 mangrove sites. The survey showed that over 1,000 ha of mangrove forests exists in scattered pockets of less than 10 ha (in 50 % of the sites), representing nearly 10 % of the known national mangrove coverage of 14,000 ha. The mangroves are estuarine type, generally healthy, and reach canopy height of 30 m. They support livelihoods and ecological securities of the surrounding fishing or farming communities. There was a general community perception that mangrove forests have decreased in area over the last 20 years. Identified threats include harvesting for fuelwood and construction, pollution from domestic and mining waste disruption in the tidal regime at some estuaries. Carbon sequestration remains a valuable service: total aboveground carbon stored in intact mangrove areas ranged from 65 to 422 tC/ha (mean of 185 tC/ha) with estimated aboveground roots (aerial roots) making up 78 % of the carbon stock in some degraded areas. The economic value of mangroves as a source of fuelwood was approximated at US$2,765/ha. A number of factors were identified as contributing to suboptimal governance of mangroves and wetlands. Appropriate PES schemes with improved legal and institutional arrangements are expected to help surmount management challenges.

There are ample data that suggest fisheries exploitation affects not only target stocks but also communities of organisms, ecological processes, and even entire ecosystems. Conservationists, and the non-governmental organizations they represent, consider such impacts a cause for concern, because the loss of biodiversity that can result is largely irreversible. Those of us who view conservation of biodiversity as paramount need good scientific information to inform our decisions on advocacy, public awareness-raising, and support to field and policy projects. In light of what seems to be global, serial mismanagement of commercial fisheries, conservation groups advocate a number of measures to supplement - not replace - conventional fisheries management regimes. First, better information is needed on the true, ecosystem-wide impacts of fisheries activity, particularly where new fisheries are being launched, major gear modifications are taking place, and/or major expansion of fishing effort is occurring. Second, there must be a paradigm shift in the way evidence of impact is gathered, so that the burden of proof and the resources spent on trying to establish that proof are not the sole responsibility of conservationists. Third, greater use must be made of marine-protected areas as a tool to strengthen management and to provide control sites to further scientific understanding and promote adaptive management.

1Some effects of fisheries on the associated biological systems are reviewed and management options and their inherent risks are considered. 2In addition to the effects on target species, other sensitive groups impacted by fishing are considered including marine mammals, turtles, sea birds, elasmobranchs and some invertebrates with low reproductive rates. 3Other impacts discussed include the destruction of benthic habitat, the provision of unnatural sources of food and the generation of debris. 4Management options are considered including the designation of marine protected areas, risk aversion, and the burden of proof. 5A balanced consideration of the risks and consequences of ‚Type 1’ and ‚Type II’ errors is advocated.

The world's oceans are now attracting the serious attention of conservationists. Paradoxically, as the value of marine biological diversity is recognized, the ecosystems that harbor this diversity are fast becoming degraded. New thinking about how to conserve coastal areas has resulted in protected-area models that incorporate principles of landscape ecology, adaptive and ecosystem management, and zoning in protected-area plans.

Coastal and marine areas the world over provide food, transportation, recreation, and energy resources to increasing numbers of people each year. As demands for these resources rise, the potential for user conflicts is radically heightened. This situation can be avoided or counteracted by instigating proactive multiple use planning. Multiple use zoning plans can only exist in a concrete management framework: marine and coastal protected areas provide just such a foundation. Nature-based or ecotourism can be encouraged in coastal protected areas aimed at achieving sustainability. Well-planned tourism provides economic and political incentives for management and for conservation, and may bring additional benefits to local communities and regional economies. Examples where nature-based tourism has been or is becoming successfully integrated into multiple use planning can be found in Quintana Roo, Mexico; the Lesser Antilles; and Australia, among other areas.

For decades people have tried to understand and define the relationships between population growth and migration, consumption, and environmental condition. Early simplistic formulas claiming a linear relationship between population size and environmental degradation have been shown to be deficient, especially when nuances of demographics such as migration and factors driving and organizing human behavior are not taken into account. Discarding outdated paradigms has not immediately led to the development of new ones that can easily explain the relationship between human population and environment, however. Yet much recent research has moved us towards elaborating the elements that will compose the foundation for a new paradigm. We describe some of these foundational elements from the perspective of migration scholars and with some attention to the research and theory of common property resource management scholars. While we are far from a conceptual framework that adequately incorporates all the variables in such complex relationships between humans and nature, there are common threads in the way researchers have addressed these questions. We believe that there is a timely convergence of ideas and demand for empirical evidence for understanding the relationship between population size, migration, consumption and the health and productivity of ecosystems. Much of this convergence has focused on coastal ecosystems: some of the most complicated, and increasingly most stressed, global environments. In this paper we explore a limited set of theoretical pathways from which hypotheses might be derived about the positive and negative impacts of population growth and migration upon the environment. We focus upon migration, in particular, since it is an understudied phenomenon in coastal areas, but the largest contributor to population growth in coastal areas (Cohen and Small 1998). We suggest three critical questions that need to be answered in order to link migration processes to coastal ecosystem health: 1) Who migrates? 2) How are they received in the place of destination? 3) And, do they maintain ties to their place of origin? In the

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have become popular tools worldwide for ecosystem conservation and fishery management. Fish assemblages can benefit from protection provided by MPAs, especially those that include fully no-take reserves. Fish response to protection can thus be used to evaluate the effectiveness of marine reserves. Most target fish are high-level predators and their overfishing may affect entire communities through trophic cascades. In the Mediterranean rocky sublittoral, marine reserves may allow fish predators of sea urchins to recover and thus whole communities to be restored from coralline barrens to macroalgae. Such direct and indirect reserve effects, however, are likely to be related to the enforcement implemented. In Italy, many MPAs that include no-take reserves have been declared, but little effort has been spent to enforce them. This is a worldwide phenomenon (although more common in some regions than others) that may cause MPAs and reserves to fail to meet their targets. We found that 3 of 15 Italian marine reserves investigated had adequate enforcement, and that patterns of recovery of target fish were related to enforcement. No responses were detected when all reserves were analyzed as a whole, suggesting enforcement as an important factor to be considered in future studies particularly to avoid that positive ecological responses in properly managed reserves can be masked by neutral/negative results in paper parks. Positive responses were observed for large piscivores (e.g. dusky groupers) and sea urchin predators at reserves where enforcement was effective. Those reserves with low or null enforcement did not differ from fished areas.

In order to develop management strategies for sustainable use and conservation in the marine environment, reliable and meaningful, but integrated ecological information is needed. Biological valuation rnaps that compile and summarize all available biological and ecological information for a study area, and that allocate ail overall biological value to subzones, can be used as baseline rnaps for future spatial planning at sea. This paper provides a concept for marine biological valuation which is based on a, literature review of existing valuation criteria and the consensus reached by a, discussion group of experts.

The editors of this special issue have put our minds to disentangling the complexity of the Population, Consumption, and Environment (PCE) connections, drawing conclusions about the insights from the preceding case studies, wondering about future research and policy recommendations to be generated from them, and imagining how interdisciplinary research about PCE issues is best done. Our various disciplinary perspectives and research experiences reflect the array of people included among the case studies' research teams. What follows is a sampling of our discussions. Much of the material comes from a roundtable discussion held on 28 February, 2002, at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. We begin with Anuradha Kumar's description of the MacArthur Foundation's PCE initiative and goals, and combine it with comments from others about how difficult it is to conduct interdisciplinary research. From there we move to discussing why coastal and marine ecosystems are challenging sites for research and policy, but are very important foci of future work. Finally, we discuss the conceptual issues of grappling with population, consumption, and environment. We conclude with a modest set of policy recommendations.