Marine Reserves, June 6

An international team of scientists has concluded that “highly protected” marine reserves can help mitigate the effects of climate change and suggests that these areas be expanded and better managed throughout the world. Globally, coastal nations have committed to protecting 10 percent of their waters by 2020, but thus far only 3.5 percent of the ocean has been set aside for protection – and less than half of that (1.6 percent) is strongly protected from exploitation. Some scientists have argued that as much as 30 percent of the ocean should be set aside as reserves to safeguard marine ecosystems in the long-term. Results of the study, which evaluated 145 peer-reviewed studies on the impact of marine reserves, is being published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  “Marine reserves cannot halt or completely offset the growing impacts of climate change,” said Oregon State University’s Jane Lubchenco, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator and co-author on the study. “But they can make marine ecosystems more resilient to changes and, in some cases, help slow down the rate of climate change.