Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Status: Active
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)