Strengthening Adaptation Capacity in Marine Protected Areas

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Strengthening Adaptation Capacity in Marine Protected Areas

Status: Completed
Operational Plan: 2019 - 2020

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are key to maintaining ocean resilience, when they are adaptively managed to respond to threats such as ocean warming, species shifts and disastrous events. Previous work included the development of tools to help identify vulnerabilities in coastal ecosystems and communities and adaptation measures to respond to these vulnerabilities. Leveraging this past work, the current project builds the capacity of MPA practitioners to manage the impacts from global and regional changes, allowing MPAs to contribute to healthier, more resilient marine ecosystems. It also aims to strengthen MPA capacity for adaptation planning by increasing networking and collaboration among MPAs, and by using these networks to exchange knowledge and experiences.

Issues

Threats such as ocean warming, species shifts and disastrous events jeopardize the health of marine protected areas (MPAs), which are key to maintaining resilient oceans and coasts
MPA managers need accessible, practical tools to support their adaptation planning and management efforts

Aim

The CEC is supporting healthy, more resilient marine and coastal ecosystems by reinforcing the capacity of MPA practitioners to manage the impacts of global and regional changes

Deliverables

Training coastal MPA practitioners in using the CEC’s climate adaptation toolkit
Providing best-practice guides on integrating disaster risk reduction and nature-based solutions (e.g., blue carbon sinks) for flood and erosion control into coastal ecosystem planning and management
Developing a collaborative plan for the North American MPA Network (NAMPAN)