PUBLIC TALK: Making Marine Protected Areas More Effective: resilience through diversity

A public lecture by Peter Jones, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University College London.

There are growing societal concerns about the health of our seas and increasing interest in the potential of marine protected areas (MPAs) to help address these concerns. However, whilst MPAs are firmly established in theory, they are much less firmly established in reality, as too few MPAs have been designated and many of these lack effectiveness in achieving their conservation objectives. Against this background, this presentation will explore the argument that the key to the resilience is diversity, both of species in ecosystems and incentives in governance systems. It will draw on the findings of 20 marine protected area (MPA) case studies from around the world, employing a novel governance analysis framework to address some key questions: How can top-down and bottom-up approaches to MPA governance be combined? What does this mean, in reality, in different contexts? How can we develop and implement governance approaches that are both effective in achieving conservation objectives and equitable in fairly sharing associated costs and benefits?

The many issues that these questions raise will be explored, as will options for addressing them.

Cost: Free, but RSVP essential to www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/jones