Marine Conservation Planning

SUMMARYVarious management approaches have been proposed to address the alarming depletion of marine coastal resources. Prominent among them are community-based management and the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs). The overall poor performance of MPAs can be traced to a failure to effectively include local communities in the design and implementation of relevant measures. Recent efforts have incorporated aspects of community-based management into a hybrid form of management, which ideally builds upon existing local management practices. A key challenge lies in the development of appropriate frameworks that allow for the successful participation of local communities in management. A review of studies on MPA design and community-based marine resource management and fieldwork observations provides suggestions on how to address current socioeconomic shortcomings in MPA design and implementation, successfully involving local communities in order to provide a better local basi...

Executive Summary This study reviews the existing costs of marine park management in Australia and overseas. We define management costs as the costs associated with maintenance of established protection zones for marine waters and offshore islands. After providing background information on the scientific knowledge about management costs, existing reserves and current management of the Coral Sea, and cost of managing the Great Barrier Reef, the report then examines three scenarios for the Coral Sea Conservation ...

1. Every manager must assess and prioritize anthropogenic impacts to their management area from a long list of threats, but data which allow comparison of the relative ecological impacts of threats for decision-making is often unavailable.
2. This study employed a systematic and standardized method to collect and quantitatively synthesize expert opinion on the ecological effects of anthropogenic threats to the world’s largest marine protected area: the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (MNM) in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI).
3. In contrast to most threat ranking exercises, the method provides detail on the reasons behind a particular ranking of threats to an ecozone and why the ranking may vary across the ecological landscape.
4. Survey results from 25 experts allowed the comparison of the vulnerability of eight NWHI ecozones to 24 anthropogenic threats in a quantitative manner.
5. Ecozones tended to have distinct top threats: sea level rise was identified as the top threat to rocky intertidal, beach and terrestrial ecozones; sea temperature rise was the top threat to the coral reef ecozones; bottom fishing was the top threat to the deep reef/bank ecozone; and pelagic fishing in the wider Pacific was the top threat to the pelagic ecozone due to impacts on bird, turtle and fish fauna that forage outside the Papahānaumokuākea MNM boundaries.
6. Many of these top threats are difficult for local managers to control because they arise from activities outside the Papahānaumokuākea MNM boundaries, indicating additional work is needed to preserve the NWHI despite its highly protected status. The analysis indicates where inter-agency cooperation in removing and mitigating threats should be focused.

The mangrove forest in four sampling sites in Ormoc Bay, namely; Benabaye, Calunagan, Puerto Bello and Tahusan Islet, was reassessed ten years after the implementation of the Fisheries Sector Program. The density ha-1 and the species diversity decreased by 50% or more; in addition, the basal areas were greatly reduced indicating that there was excessive harvesting of large mangrove trees since 1992. More than 50% of the different mangrove genera exhibited high regenerative capacities. Avicennia and Rhizophora have high regenerative capacities in all sampling sites; in contrast the regenerative capacities of Nypa and Sonneratia in four, of Ceprios in three and of Aegiceras and Bruguiera in two sampling sites were way below 50%. The mangroves in all sampling sites do not exhibit a distinct species zonation pattern; almost all the species overlap with each other.

The mangrove forest is highly utilized by the local communities. People gather different mangrove species and a variety of edible invertebrates both for household consumption and for economic gains by selling them to the market. The resource, however, is seriously threatened by human-induced stresses, such as, over-exploitation, conversion of mangrove areas to fishponds, and soil erosion due to the denuded forest cover in the uplands. Recommendations to prevent further degradation of the mangrove resource are given.

Population connectivity plays significant roles on both evolutionary and ecological time-scales, however quantifying the magnitude and pattern of exchange between populations of marine organisms is hindered by the difficulty of tracking the trajectory and fate of propagules. We explore biophysical correlates of population substructure to determine how well pelagic larval duration (PLD) correlates with population genetic estimates of connectivity in a sample of 300 published studies drawn pseudo-randomly from about 1600 hits on electronic searches. In direct contrast to the general expectation of a strong correlation, we find that average PLD is poorly correlated (r2 < 0.1) with genetic structure (FST). Furthermore, even this weak correlation is anchored by non-pelagic dispersal, because removal of the zero PLD class (direct developers) from the analysis resulted in a non-significant relationship between FST and PLD. For species in which minimum, maximum and mean PLD were available, it is noteworthy that both minimum and maximum PLD are better correlated with FST than the mean larval duration, which has been used in all such previous studies. A 3-way ANCOVA reveals that genetic marker class (mtDNA, allozymes, and microsatellites) as opposed to habitat or swimming ability, explain most of the variation in FST (F = 7.113, df = 2, p = 0.001), with higher values of FST obtained from mtDNA than with either microsatellites or allozymes (which were not significantly different). Our meta-analysis refutes recent reviews and conventional wisdom that PLD is a good predictor of the magnitude of gene flow and geographic scale of population structure in marine systems.

The Blue Economy (BE) is a resonant theme among Bay of Bengal states. Despite recent efforts by governments in the region to promote blue growth, however, there is yet no comprehensive, region-wide agenda for marine governance. This brief looks at ways in which Bay states can harmonise their BE approaches to develop an integrated strategy. By collectively investing in technology, innovation, and governance systems, the governments of these littoral states can find the balance between the need for environmental sustainability and development imperatives.

Spatial management, including setting aside conservation areas, is central to curbing the global decline of biodiversity, but many threats originate from beyond the boundaries of conservation areas. This is a particular problem in marine systems, which are influenced by many activities on land. In addition, connections between land and sea support many species and ecological processes valued for conservation. Integrated land and sea conservation planning is therefore of utmost importance. We review the literature describing connections between land and sea and how they have been incorporated into conservation planning. Land-sea connections include land-sea processes, the natural flows occurring between realms; cross-system threats, which originate in one realm and affect another; and socioeconomic interactions associated with management decisions to maintain or restore land-sea processes and to prevent or mitigate cross-system threats. We highlight the need to explicitly incorporate land-sea connections in conservation planning and suggest ways of doing this through the use of a novel operational framework for integrated land-sea planning. On the basis of expert surveys and a literature review, we also identify those aspects of conservation planning for which improved integration between land and sea is most needed.

Attention to marine protected areas (MPA) for conservation and sustainability purposes has increased in Colombia in the recent decades. This shift is a result of the commitment of Colombia with international conventions and treaties (e.g., CBD, Aichi Target 11) and the realization by public and private research organizations of the fast rate of marine biodiversity loss and fisheries decline. This paper presents an examination of the situation of MPAs in Colombia and identifies barriers and opportunities to improve MPA governance. The analysis of documents, semi-structured interviews with environmental organizations (n ¼ 13) and community representatives (n ¼ 56), and focus groups (n ¼ 6) provides a comprehensive understanding of the Colombia MPA system and the challenges for improving its governance. The adoption of international conservation policies and planning tools is driving the increasing numbers of MPAs. Yet, the governance effectiveness of the MPAs, particularly under the current top-down approach, deserves consideration. Barriers and opportunities for improving MPA governance are related to both government and coastal community stakeholders, and include lack of implementation of participatory policies, limited institutional and community organization capacity, loss of self-regulatory fishing practices, and violence among others. Partnerships among NGOs, private organizations , communities and government together with recent afro-descendant community organization and leadership represent key opportunities for fostering meaningful participation of communities in MPA planning/management and for improving MPA governance.

Many hermatypic corals are broadcast spawners. Little is known about the dispersal potential of their planktonic larvae. Settlement can begin 2-3 days post-fertilization, but competency may last for a month or more. Hydrographic models can be use d to estimate larval dispersal, but they require information about the swimming behavior of the larvae during transport, including buoyancy and vertical swimming behavior. Coral eggs are positively buoyant when released, but embryos and larvae with time become less buoyant and acquire the ability to swim downwards. The time-course of such developmental changes is needed to couple with hydrographic data to model dispersal curves. Such data are presented here for the major Caribbean hermatype, Montastraea faveolata. Larval buoyancy was measured as ascent rate in a volumetric pipette, and measured every 6 hours for 3.25 hours post-fertilization. V ertical swimming behavior was measured as vertical distribution of the larvae within 2 L graduated cylinders, placed on an orbital shaker table, measured every 6 hours from 40 hours to 8.5 days post-fertilization. Newly fertilized eggs (non-swimming) had an ascent rate of 1.82 mm s-1, and this decreased linearly to 1.04 mm s-1 over the following 2.3 days, by which time many larvae were swimming. Over 80 % of the larvae remained within the top 4 cm of the 40 cm-tall cylinder over the first 2.5 days postfertilization. Diel vertical migration became apparent after ca. 3 daysdownwards in dark, upwards in light), and became more pronounced over time. However, even 8 days post-fertilization, less than 20 % of the larvae were at the bottom of the cylinder at the end of the dark period. These results show that while some larvae of this species can settle within a few days, most do not develop strong bottom seeking behavior until much later, and could be dispersed far from their site of o rigin.

The Philippines is one of the world's 17 “megadiversity” countries because it contains a high proportion of unique biodiversity. But at the same time, our country is a global “hotspot” because forests and other natural areas, with their unique plants and animals, are being lost at a fast rate.

To help solve this biodiversity crisis, the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF) funded a conservation program for the Eastern Mindanao Biodiversity Corridor (EMBC), one of three “megadiverse” yet “hotspot” focal areas in the country. The geographic cores of this cross-cutting iniative are nine (9) key biodiversity areas (KBAs) and the mosaic of landscapes amid them. The program's idea is to set up protection and management regimes for the core KBAs and establish links between them through linear patches of wildlife habitats called “biological corridors”. These “corridors of life” aim to provide habitat and dispersal routes for wildlife, maintain crucial ecological processes, while providing opportunities for improving the quality of lives of impoverished communities inhabiting the corridors.

The KBAs altogether cover about 909,191 hectares (ha) of wildlife habitats for 69 globally endangered species. These KBAs are at the same time the life blood of 4 cities, 88 municipalities and 8 provinces that all depend on the water, natural resources and the ecological services these KBAs provide.

A conservation framework was developed to serve as a 10-year blueprint for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development within eastern Mindanao. The framework was based on the best scientific data available on the corridor's biological wealth, socio-economic status, the factors that can limit threatened species' survival over the long term, the threats to ecosystem health and functions, and which stakeholders are key to the conservation of the KBAs.

Minimizing and mitigating impacts of human development to biodiversity is the aim of this framework. There is an increasing pressure to expand land and resource use to meet the needs of a growing population and solve problems of human poverty. But these drivers of development can potentially cause overuse of resources, exterminate species, and devastate fragile environments. Exhausting finite resources and losing ecosystem functions can diminish rather than improve the odds for a balanced, long-term, and quality life for Filipinos in eastern Mindanao.

Nine major threats were identified, and they are: 1) population growth, 2) poverty, 3) non-compliance by logging companies, 4) illegal logging and the lack of monitoring and law enforcement, 5) open pit and strip mining, 6) forest conversion, 7) land-use conversion and crop shifting, 8) wildlife hunting and collection for food and trade, and 9) invasive species. These threats were summarized from regional stakeholder workshops wherein strategies and actions to address threats were also identified and discussed. Using results of stakeholder meetings and data from baseline profiling, a Strategic Planning and Policy Team (SPPT) chaired by the Regional DENR Office, with members from government agencies, local government units, academic institutions, and NGOs, worked on the development of this framework.

Eight strategic directions were recommended for the EMBC: 1) create and expand the network of protected areas, 2) mainstream and institutionalize biodiversity conservation in local development plans and policies, 3) build stakeholder capacity for sustainable resource management, 4) establish corridor research database for planning, policy and decision-making, 5) address population, health, education, poverty and other people issues linked to biodiversity, 6) establish better information education and communication (IEC) system, 7) promote and develop sustainable livelihood, and 8) install adequate fund mechanisms to meet conservation goals. For each of the 9 KBAs, specific conservation actions under suitable strategies were outlined.

It is recommended that a KBA Cluster will take the lead in implementing KBA-specific conservation goals while a KBA council, one for Region XI and another for Caraga Region, will develop and oversee corridor policies and monitor operations of the clusters under them. The two KBA Councils rely on a Corridor Council for policy formulation, help with fund-raising, and for monitoring framework goals at the corridor level.

The report provides a spatial and temporal characterization of the fish and benthic communities of Buck Island Reef National Monument and the surrounding seascapes of northeastern St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. The project is a component of NOAA’s Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring (CREM) project of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the National Park Service (NPS). The project integrates field data on coral condition, living marine resources and benthic habitats through an ongoing multi-agency collaboration between NOAA’s Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment Biogeography Branch (CCMA-BB), NPS, U.S. Geological Survey and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources (VI-DPNR).
This Technical Memorandum is part one of a series of reports that focus on providing a quantitative spatial and temporal characterization of living marine resources and benthic communities associated with marine protected areas in the U.S. Caribbean. This project complements the National Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring Program’s (NCREMP) Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring grants awarded to the VI-DPNR by CRCP. The integration of the NOAA/NPS lead efforts with data generated by VI-DPNR provides robust spatial and temporal data to characterize St. Croix coral reef ecosystems. This project was funded by NOAA’s CRCP and National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s CCMA and CSCOR, NPS’s Natural Resource Preservation Program (NRPP) at Buck Island Reef National Monument and NPS’s South Florida/Caribbean Inventory and Monitoring Program.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Isabel Ridges to Reefs Conservation Plan can be used to guide future conservation and development activities throughout Isabel. The plan allows stakeholders to visualise the location of conservation priorities for Isabel Province, the threats that the biodiversity of Isabel faces and what a successfully implemented protected area network across Isabel could look like under several different scenarios. It provides an important step towards establishing an Isabel Ridges to Reefs Protected Area Network (IPAN), which would support future food and freshwater security, preserve the islands remarkable biodiversity and reduce the stress on terrestrial and marine environments, hereby increasing the resilience of natural systems to external shocks such as climate change.

The process of developing the plan was locally driven and involved a range of stakeholders. The planning process included an initial stakeholder planning workshop in Buala in February 2012, a second stakeholder planning workshop in Kia in April 2012 and a final workshop in Buala in June 2012. These workshops brought together community members from every district of Isabel, along with representatives from provincial and national government, NGOs and development industries. The workshops began with presentations from church leaders, government officials, chiefs and scientists on the status of Isabel’s environment and the need to protect it for the future prosperity of the people of Isabel. Workshop facilitators then presented the best available national scale data on the various marine and forest types of Isabel, and described some of the threats these different types of habitats face.

To document fine scale information and make the planning process relevant, local stakeholders used participatory mapping to identify local features within their customarily owned lands and seas that are of high conservation value to them. These features represent important biological and cultural resources that would benefit from protection or management, such as sources of freshwater, cultural heritage sites, turtle nesting beaches, fish spawning aggregations and megapode nesting areas. Participatory mapping was also used to identify threats to biodiversity (e.g. logging, mining and areas susceptible to climate change) and to map areas of conservation opportunity, such as sites that are proposed but not yet managed. These local conservation features were digitised and put into a Geographic Information System (GIS) format. Conservation targets (how much of each feature should be protected across Isabel) were set at a minimum of 17% for all terrestrial and 10% for all marine conservation features that were identified from national scale data, that being in line the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) targets which Solomon Islands is a signatory to. Stakeholders wanted higher levels of protection for the locally identified conservation features, so minimum and maximum levels of protection were used for these features. All this information was then analysed with the software Marxan to produce three different conservation priority maps for Isabel Province.

As well as providing background and guidance for conservation and development across Isabel province, this report provides constructive progress regarding Solomon Islands commitment to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the identification of terrestrial and marine priorities as part of the Program of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA). This report also makes progress towards implementing the Solomon Islands National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) which all of the Premiers of the Solomon Islands signed in 2009. Specifically it addresses Themes 2 and 3 of the NBSAP, which concern species conservation and protected area systems.

Criterios empleados para la selección de los Objetos de Conservación empleados en el estudio de planificación ecorregional para seleccionar las prioridades de conservación en el Caribe venezolano. Capitulo de Klein E. (editor). 2008. Prioridades de PDVSA en la Conservación de la Biodiversidad en el Caribe Venezolano. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. - Universidad Simón Bolívar - The Nature Conservancy. Caracas, Venezuela. 72 p

"This study explores relationships between benthic foraminiferal
assemblages and environmental factors in the Strait of Bonifacio, which separates the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, west of Italy Peninsula.
Benthic foraminifera were identified in 31 samples collected during an oceanographic cruise (‘‘Bocche 2003’’ – P.I.C Interreg III Project) that provided new geomorphologic and sedimentologic data on the western continental shelf of the strait. Biotic parameters (species diversity, density, Fisher a index, Shannon-Weaver index, and Dominance) were calculated and multivariate analyses (Cluster Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, and Canonical Correspondence Analysis) were performed to quantify foraminiferal assemblages in the context of environmental parameters (depth, current velocities, sediment texture, and organic matter).
The most abundant benthic foraminifera in the surface sediments were Elphidium cf. E. advenum, E. complanatum, E. crispum, Lobatula lobatula, Miliolinella subrotunda, Planorbulina mediterranensis, Quinqueloculina laevigata, Rosalina vilardeboana, Spiroplectinella sagittula, and Textularia agglutinans. Their spatial distributions strongly correlated with bathymetry and hydrodynamic energy, as well as texture and organic matter content of sediments. Three group of stations were differentiated from environments that varied mainly by hydrodynamic energy. The first group included the shallowest stations, close to Corsica and Sardinia, where sediments were mainly silty sand. Three of
these stations had the highest proportions of organic matter.
The foraminiferal species in that group are divided into two assemblages. In the first assemblage most of the 20 species were present in homogenous proportions, while the second assemblage was dominated by R. vilardeboana and L. lobatula. The two other groups of stations were characterized by the influence of strong currents, and coarse sand and gravel substrates with the lowest proportions of organic matter. In the second group the five dominant species, E. crispum, E. concameratus and T. agglutinans appeared to be best adapted to this high-energy environment. In the third group of species, the presence of P. mediterranensis and S. sagittula was at its height.
Other notable findings were: 1) strong current velocities supported the dominance of epibenthic foraminifera (e.g., L. lobatula and P. mediterranensis) permanently attached to seagrass and algae; 2) a strong affinity for substrates with more abundant organic carbon and higher C/N ratios was shown by M. subrotunda, Neoconorbina nitida, Quinqueloculina stelligera, Rosalina globularis, R. vilardeboana, and Sigmoilinita costata; and 3) the distribution of S. sagittula is closely linked with bathymetry.
These results indicate that benthic foraminifera assemblages can be useful as hydrodynamic energy proxy for a valuable characterization of specific environments."

Marine Reserves (MRs) are amongst the most common tools used for marine conservation around the world. New Zealand (NZ) has 34 MRs protecting approximately 7.6% of NZ‘s territorial seas. In NZ the main purpose of MRs is to allow scientific research to be conducted in the absence of human disturbance. The establishment of MRs around the country produces different biological, social and economic effects in the surrounding communities. However, the majority of previous MR studies have evaluated the biological effects of protection and not the social and economic effects. This thesis investigates how established MRs are performing in terms of social, economic, social and biological goals and contributing to society‘s well-being within New Zealand. For this research I conducted research at two MRs. The Taputeranga MR (TMR) was established in 2008, and is the newest MR established in New Zealand. It is located in the Wellington region, on the Wellington south coast, and extends from Princess Bay to Quarry Bay, protecting 8.54 km2 of coastal waters. Kapiti MR (KMR), which is one of the oldest MRs in New Zealand, was established in 1992 in the Wellington region, approximately 50 km north of Wellington city. It is located on the Kapiti coast in front of Paraparaumu beach. The KMR covers 20.90 km2of coastal water, divided into two parts; the largest part is 17.50 km2and the smaller part is 3.4 km2.
In this thesis I am starting to explore the financial cost of the MRs (chapter 2), where I attempted to estimate all of the costs required to establish a MR. The Taputeranga MR was used as a case study along with an analysis of the management costs for four other MRs. I aimed to find predictor variables across these five MRs to explain differences in their management cost. In addition, I also estimated the displacement cost to fishermen. Results showed that the Taputeranga‘s pre-establishment process cost approximately NZ $508,000, and the establishment process cost approximately NZ $ 354,000. In addition, the average management cost across five MRs per year was around NZ $63,000 year -1. With respect to the predictor variables, the Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) analysis showed that MR size best explains cost, where small MRs are more expensive to maintain than big MRs. The displacement cost was estimated as NZ $22,000 approximately per vessel.
I also researched and examined the social impacts of MRs (chapter 3). The aim of this chapter was to explore the human dimensions of the TMR and KMR and a hypothetical MR as a control area. I used a series of questionnaires with five main groups affected by the establishment of the MRs. Results showed that of the people who conducted activities close to the TMR and KMR, nobody selected either area specifically because there was a MR in the vicinity. With respect to MR knowledge, the majority of people at both MRs and at the hypothetical MR believed they knew what a MR was, however, nobody could provide a correct description of the main reasons for MR designation in New Zealand. Most groups surveyed at KMR indicated that its establishment had not personally affected them. At TMR, all groups believed they had experienced direct (personal) and indirect problems since the establishment of the MR. At the hypothetical MR, the majority of respondents perceived that its establishment would not cause any personal or family problems. I found that respondents at both MRs and the hypothetical MR believed that MRs are a good tool for protecting the environment.
I also develop a framework to understand and estimate MR goods and services by using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework (chapter 4). The aim of this study was to identify and determine use and non-use values of the Taputeranga MR and Kapiti MR. At KMR and TMR I identified eight main value-categories: (1) Commercial fishing benefits from MR, (2) Nature-based tourism, (3) Education, (4) Research, (5) Public recreation, (6) Recreational fishing benefit from MR, (7) Ecosystem health, and (8) Existence – Bequest value. The existence-bequest values (non-use values) were estimated based on the public‘s willingness to pay (WTP) and found to have a mean value of NZ $61.54 at the TMR and NZ $31.45 at the KMR per household/year.
After being exploring cost of MRs, social effects of MRs and MR goods and services, I researched the biological effects of MRs. For this I examined the effect of MRs on rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii) biomass and abundance (chapter 5). I investigated how rock lobsters (RLs) (Jasus edwardsii) have responded to the protection afforded by the TMR and KMR by comparing rock lobster Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) between reserve and nonreserve areas. The average CPUE was higher inside both MRs than outside. Also bigger RLs were caught inside both MRs‘. In addition, the TMR catches were twice as high compared with historical catches, and the KMR compared with historical catches were 1.93 times higher.
By integrating all these different chapters and methodologies I have been able to provide insights that will help in the future of conservation of MRs, by improving the level of information for better decision-making, improving the communication between decision makers and stakeholders and to build better relationships between researchers and non extractive users of MRs. Moreover, I provide recommendations that could be useful to include within the current Marine Protected Area Policy and potentially improve it. These recommendations also attempt to minimize the time and costs involved in MRs from the pre establishment stages, by creating effective and formal alliances between different groups of stakeholders.

El Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA), tiene 245 km de longitud costera, 158,721 ha terrestres protegidas y únicamente 11,675 ha de extensión marina protegida. Contiene 17 áreas protegidas, incluidas el Parque Nacional Marino Ballena, el Humedal Nacional Térraba-Sierpe, la Reserva Biológica Isla del Caño y el Parque Nacional Corcovado, todas con un fuerte componente marino-costero. El Golfo Dulce en particular, es un cuerpo de agua de 50 km de longitud, con una superficie aproximada de 680 km2. Se caracteriza por poseer una cuenca interna de pendiente pronunciada con una profundidad máxima de 215 m y un umbral poco profundo en su entrada de 60 m, lo que hace que posea características oceanográficas excepcionales. Podría albergar el 23% de la diversidad marina de nuestra costa Pacífica, por lo que se conoce como un punto caliente para la diversidad marina de nuestro país. Estas zonas marinas del Pacífico Sur dentro de ACOSA y especialmente el Golfo Dulce, han sido seleccionadas como un área de importancia para la biodiversidad marina y costera por el proceso Ordenamiento Territorial para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad de Costa Rica (GRUAS II), en donde se destacan los sistemas estuarinos (manglares), sistemas intermareales (acantilados de roca dura, playas de arena gruesa y fina), sistemas submareales (formaciones coralinas, fondos rocosos, fondos de lodo bioclásticos y litoclásticos) y la fosa anóxica. De igual manera, toma importancia la presencia de playas de anidación de tortugas marinas y los hábitats que favorecen la presencia de cetáceos. El objetivo de GRUAS II fue optimizar los esfuerzos nacionales para la conservación in situ de la biodiversidad marina costera del país, a través de la orientación de las políticas nacionales de ordenamiento territorial con fines de conservación de la biodiversidad, utilizando el mejor conocimiento científico disponible y mediante un proceso participativo y transparente. En este sentido, el objetivo de este Volumen Especial es aportar conocimiento científico relevante para evaluar el estado de conservación de los elementos focales de manejo en ACOSA para estos sitios. Como sucede en muchas zonas marino costeras del paísla mayoría de las datos corresponden a descripciones generales de los principales ambientes marinos, pero poca información específica como, por ejemplo, patrones de corrientes, impacto de la actividad pesquera, ecología de las comunidades, entre otras. Es así como este suplemento aporta información actualizada sobre organismos de la costa rocosa, playas arenosas y fangosas, que habían sido poco estudiadas a la fecha. Se han descrito la estructura poblacional de la piangua para algunos sitios dentro del golfo, sin duda el molusco de mayor importancia comercial en la zona. Desde inicios de los años 80, las formaciones coralinas habían sido estudiadas solo en su cobertura; sin embargo, se presenta ahora información relevante complementaria a cobertura, como rugosidad, diversidad y densidad de macro invertebrados, así como la diversidad y biomasa de peces arrecifales. Se rescataron esfuerzos de más de 16 años de trabajo de monitoreo de playas de anidación de tortugas marinas dentro del Gofo Dulce, así como también nuevos datos sobre la caracterización de anidación y agregaciones de tortugas lora y sobre alimentación de tortugas carey. Al ser Golfo Dulce una de las cinco Áreas Marinas de Uso Múltiple (AMUM) del país y, simultáneamente, un Área Marina de Pesca Responsable (AMPR), es de especial importancia tomar en cuenta los datos acá presentados sobre abundancia y reproducción de tiburones así como la caracterización de las pesquerías de varias especies de tiburones y rayas. Es importante destacar la valiosa información que ha resultado de los estudios generados por el Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, que con esta iniciativa permite el acceso de información relevante relacionada al Humedal Nacional Térraba-Sierpe. Ahora es posible contar con información relacionada a la distribución espacial de las especies de mangle, su asociación con los tipos de sedimentos y la dinámica oceanográfica frente a sus costas. Así como también, entender acerca de la distribución espacial y temporal de la salinidad en la columna de agua y la productividad primaria relacionada a este humedal. Ahora contamos con mejor información técnica confiable como insumo para la toma de decisiones de manejo. Es importante recalcar que muchos autores recomiendan medidas de manejo y conservación que deben ejecutarse para velar por la salud de la población o ecosistema de estudio. Alentamos respetuosamente a las autoridades y gobierno a tomar estas recomendaciones en cuenta, a través del fortalecimiento de las instituciones públicas que hoy en día velan por la perpetuidad de dichos ecosistemas y especies.

The number of no-take marine protected areas (here referred to as no-take areas, NTAs) on coral reefs has increased considerably in recent decades. Coincident with accelerating degradation of coral reefs, expectations of the benefits that NTAs can provide for coastal societies and sustainability of marine ecosystems has grown. These include increasing abundance of reef organisms both inside and outside NTAs, protecting key ecosystem functions, and providing social and economic benefits through improved ...

White Syndrome (WS) and Brown Band Disease (BrB) are important causes of reef coral mortality for which causal agents have not been definitively identified. Here we use culture-independent molecular techniques (DGGE and clone libraries) to characterise ciliate and bacterial communities in these diseases. Bacterial (16S rRNA gene) and ciliate (18S rRNA gene) communities were highly similar between the two diseases. Four bacterial and nine ciliate ribotypes were observed in both diseases, but absent in non diseased specimens. Only one of the bacteria, Arcobacter sp. (JF831360) increased substantially in relative 16S rRNA gene abundance and was consistently represented in all diseased samples. Four of the eleven ciliate morphotypes detected contained coral algal symbionts, indicative of the ingestion of coral tissues. In both WS and BrB, there were two ciliate morphotypes consistently represented in all disease lesion samples. Morph1 (JN626268) was observed to burrow into and underneath the coral tissues at the lesion boundary. Morph2 (JN626269), previously identified in BrB, appears to play a secondary, less invasive role in pathogenesis, but has a higher population density in BrB, giving rise to the visible brown band. The strong similarity in bacterial and ciliate community composition of these diseases suggests that they are actually the same syndrome.

To ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity, conservation strategies must account for the entire range of climate change impacts. A variety of spatial prioritisation techniques have been developed to incorporate climate change. Here, we provide the first standardised review of these approaches. Using a systematic search, we analysed peer-reviewed spatial prioritisation publications (n = 46) and found that the most common approaches (n = 41, 89%) utilised forecasts of species distributions and aimed to either protect future species habitats (n = 24, 52%) or identify climate refugia to shelter species from climate change (n = 17, 37%). Other approaches (n = 17, 37%) used well-established conservation planning principles to combat climate change, aimed at broadly increasing either connectivity (n = 11, 24%) or the degree of heterogeneity of abiotic factors captured in the planning process (n = 8, 17%), with some approaches combining multiple goals. We also find a strong terrestrial focus (n = 35, 76%), and heavy geographical bias towards North America (n = 8, 17%) and Australia (n = 11, 24%). While there is an increasing trend of incorporating climate change into spatial prioritisation, we found that serious gaps in current methodologies still exist. Future research must focus on developing methodologies that allow planners to incorporate human responses to climate change and recognise that discrete climate impacts (e.g. extreme events), which are increasing in frequency and severity, must be addressed within the spatial prioritisation framework. By identifying obvious gaps and highlighting future research needs this review will help practitioners better plan for conservation action in the face of multiple threats including climate change.

This paper is an exploration of the relationship between a conservation intervention and the quest for local institutional legitimacy
and conservation success through co-management. More precisely, this paper will employ the case of Xcalak Reefs National
Park (PNAX) to illuminate the interaction between contextual and procedural elements of co-management implementation,
how these variables affect the production of legitimacy in the minds of local resource users, and how resultant attitudes can
subvert both management devolution and resource conservation. The failure to produce co-management will be related to the
mismatch inherent in attempts to map co-management onto a histories and institutions that do not align with the morality and
practicalities necessary for its implementation. The case reiterates the necessity for conservation managers and practitioners
to have an understanding of local history and context. Lastly, Xcalak demonstrates the dangers for the success of conservation
and development programs inherent in management processes that are inconsistent with built expectations. In so doing, this
paper highlights critical assumptions made in the real-world application of co-management, as well as inherent conflicts found
between local and extra-local moralities that guide conservation work.