
Crystal clear water in the Maldives. Photo by wardyboy400, Wikimedia Commons.
The Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia and ProtectedSeas Navigator, a free, interactive map of marine regulatory information worldwide, have partnered to expand users’ access to marine protected area (MPA) information.
This new collaboration offers policymakers, researchers, non-profit organizations, students, journalists and others a new way to evaluate existing MPAs within a country’s exclusive economic zone.
Users can do so by visiting the respective page on the Sea Around Us website and navigating to the ‘Marine Protected Areas’ section. Once there, they can get general MPA details for a specific EEZ or click on the ProtectedSeas tab to be taken to the Navigator website. From there, users can see marine regulatory information for over 22,000 marine areas worldwide, view MPA coverage and total managed areas by country, access standardized level of fishing protection (LFP) scores, and download detailed reports of marine protections by region.
“On the Sea Around Us website and database, we present catch time series for 282 exclusive economic zones and other geographies. These time series start in 1950 and can be ‘filtered’ by 10 dimensions such as gear employed and end-use. We also present relevant information and indicators, including each EEZ’s ‘marine protected areas.’ All of these resources are indispensable for assessing the impact of fisheries on marine ecosystems,” said Dr. Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us. “By deep-linking each EEZ page to the respective ProtectedSeas page, we are enhancing the existing information and highlighting research-backed data that can be useful for determining and assessing the boundaries and regulations of marine protected areas.”
Similarly, ProtectedSeas Navigator provides links to catch data and other related indicators available on the Sea Around Us website on each of its country pages.
“By partnering with the Sea Around Us, we are increasing the availability and visibility of data on global ocean protections,” said ProtectedSeas director Virgil Zetterlind. “This collaboration offers actionable insights about the state of our global ocean to help drive responsible stewardship of our marine resources.”