Protecting Marine Ecosystems

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CEC Council Session26 June 2008
Protecting Marine Ecosystems NAMPAN
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Where are we coming from

• A growing portion of North Americas population
  lives on or near its coasts, thereby placing
  various pressures on its coastal and marine
  ecosystems
• Trends in North America show significant progress
  in the management of the ocean environment but
  long-term challenges remain for sustainable
  fisheries, protection of coastal waters and
  beaches, and conservation of marine biodiversity
• Throughout North America, marine protected areas
  (MPAs) have been established to conserve natural
  heritage, cultural heritage and to protect the
  long-term sustainability of our shared marine
  resources

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NAMPAN accomplishments

• Established a functional network of managers of
  MPAs throughout Baja California to the Bering Sea
  aimed at protecting shared species and spaces 
• Developed a continental classification of marine
  ecological regions that improves our knowledge
  base of marine ecosystems 
• Identified a list of 28 Marine Priority
  Conservation Areas (PCAs) along the west coast of
  North America
• Developed a region-wide system to assess and
  report on the ecological conditions of marine
  protected areas along the Pacific Coast of North
  America

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NAMPAN Strategy

• Focus on special places already protected through
  existing domestic regulations
• Provide continent-wide ecological context
• Marine ecoregions
• Marine priority conservation areas
• Use existing information to assess MPA health
• Demonstrate value of evidence and science-based
  assessments

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Baja to Bering (B2B) Pilot Project

• Ten MPAs
• Expert panels
• Standard questions
• Water
• Habitat
• Living Resources
• Condition Trend
• Consensus judgments on MPA health

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Future Challenges

• Establish standard NAMPAN scorecard protocol
• Expand the process to other MPAs within and
  beyond the B2B region for a continental
  perspective
• Compare MPAs with other sites Ocean observing
  systems
• Integrate information from non-MPA sources (e.g.,
  fisheries, ocean observing systems)
• Plan for long-term implementation
• Monitoring project has demonstrated that NAMPAN
  is fostering trinational progress toward an
  effective North American Network of MPAs and
  should be drawn on to advance work on other
  shared MPA challenges