Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission

Establishing a Regional System of Fisheries Refugia in the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand
UNEP/GEF project

MPA Global - A database of the world's Marine Protected Areas

Use this site to search for Marine Protected areas in your region.

This project falls within the Sea Around Us Project,an activity initiated and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, and hosted by the University of British Columbia's Fisheries Centre. It is the result of a formal collaboration between the Sea Around Us Project, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the World Conservation Union - World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN-WCPA).

This project has two main goals: firstly, to develop a more robust global marine protected area (MPA) baseline than currently exists; and secondly, to develop alternative scenarios of global MPA networks using spatial modelling techniques.

Towards achieving the first goal, this website publishes the world's first explicitly marine-focused database of the world's protected areas that have some intertidal and/or subtidal component. It is currently based largely on information in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) Version 6.1.

PISCO has updated The Science of Marine Reserves, an educational booklet originally published in 2002.

This link provides the PISCO resources on the latest scientific information about reserves in an understandable and accessible format. They are designed to be used by natural resource managers, government officials, scientists, and the interested public.

The Locally-Managed Marine Area Network is a group of practitioners involved in various community-based marine conservation projects around the globe, primarily in the Indo-Pacific, who have joined together to learn how to improve our management efforts. We are interested in learning under what conditions using an LMMA strategy works, doesn’t work, and why.
The Network provides information and resources on locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs) and community-based adaptive management (CBAM), and training in project design, monitoring, data management and analysis, fundraising, communications and more. Project teams’ aims may vary – from improving local fishery resources (communities) to protecting coral reef biodiversity (conservation organizations)
The Network spans the people and cultures of Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the Americas. Some nations have their own country-wide network, which operate autonomously, but within the framework of the overall Network. Independently and together, we work toward our five objectives:

Learn about the LMMA approach (through systematic and question-driven monitoring and/or other assessment approaches).
Protect biodiversity at specific sites.
Promote the LMMA approach (and lessons from using it) in the Indo-Pacific and globally.
Build capacity for learning and implementation of Community-Based Adaptive Management (CBAM).
Develop the policy environment at local, regional, country and international levels to support widespread adoption of LMMAs.

The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has developed a website area devoted to the Social Dimensions of Marine Protected Area (MPAs)with specific relation to fishing communities.

alongside legal reviews and other resources there are studies facilitated by ICSF in India, Indonesia South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Tanzania, drawing on on-the-ground experiences of fishing communities.
Case studies on the effects of MPA's on communities and fisherfolk