Back to Search
Start Over
Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate
- Source :
- Nature (0028-0836) (Springer Science and Business Media LLC), 2021-04, Vol. 592, N. 7854, P. 397-402, Nature, Nature, Nature Publishing Group, 2021, ⟨10.1038/s41586-021-03371-z⟩
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021.
-
Abstract
- The ocean contains unique biodiversity, provides valuable food resources and is a major sink for anthropogenic carbon. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an effective tool for restoring ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services1,2, but at present only 2.7% of the ocean is highly protected3. This low level of ocean protection is due largely to conflicts with fisheries and other extractive uses. To address this issue, here we developed a conservation planning framework to prioritize highly protected MPAs in places that would result in multiple benefits today and in the future. We find that a substantial increase in ocean protection could have triple benefits, by protecting biodiversity, boosting the yield of fisheries and securing marine carbon stocks that are at risk from human activities. Our results show that most coastal nations contain priority areas that can contribute substantially to achieving these three objectives of biodiversity protection, food provision and carbon storage. A globally coordinated effort could be nearly twice as efficient as uncoordinated, national-level conservation planning. Our flexible prioritization framework could help to inform both national marine spatial plans4 and global targets for marine conservation, food security and climate action. Using a globally coordinated strategic conservation framework to plan an increase in ocean protection through marine protected areas can yield benefits for biodiversity, food provisioning and carbon storage.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Marine conservation
Carbon Sequestration
Conservation of Natural Resources
Geologic Sediments
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
[SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes
Climate
International Cooperation
Fisheries
Biodiversity
costs
take marine reserves
Carbon sequestration
Global Warming
01 natural sciences
Food Supply
Animals
Human Activities
Ecosystem
14. Life underwater
organic-matter
biogeography
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
model
Multidisciplinary
Food security
Overfishing
business.industry
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
sediments
Environmental resource management
areas
Provisioning
15. Life on land
predictors
resuspension
13. Climate action
impact
Marine protected area
[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14764687, 00280836, and 14764679
- Volume :
- 592
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fb58dd26088a4a66c3f41de15a668ff8
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03371-z