Evaluating the social and ecological effectiveness of partially protected marine areas

Published source details Turnbull J.W., Johnston E.L. & Clark G.F. (2021) Evaluating the social and ecological effectiveness of partially protected marine areas. Conservation Biology, 35, 921-932.
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This study is summarised as evidence for the following.

	Action	Category
	Designate a Marine Protected Area and prohibit some fishing and collection (including where restrictions are unspecified) Action Link
	Designate a Marine Protected Area and prohibit all types of fishing and collection Action Link

Designate a Marine Protected Area and prohibit some fishing and collection (including where restrictions are unspecified)

A replicated, site comparison study over six years [years unknown] from 56 sites spanning six years along the Great Southern Reef off Australia (Turnbull et al. 2021) found that in protected areas that prohibited some types of fishing and collection, diversity and cover of sessile invertebrate (reported as “sponges, soft corals, ascidians, etc.”) was lower compared to unprotected areas. See original paper for data. In addition, protected areas where all fishing and collecting was prohibited had similar diversity and cover of sessile invertebrates than unprotected areas. Sites either restricted some types of fishing (18 sites in 11 areas, with a range of different restrictions; see paper for details), fully restricted all fishing and collecting (19 sites in 10 areas) or were outside of a protected area (19 sites). Using data from an online database, a total of 1,971 photo quadrats (33% from partially protected, 46% from fully protected, 21% from unprotected areas) taken along 50 m transects were used to quantify diversity and cover of sessile invertebrates using the Collaborative and Annotation Tools for Analysis of Marine Imagery.

(Summarised by: William Morgan)
Designate a Marine Protected Area and prohibit all types of fishing and collection

A replicated, site comparison study over six years [years unknown] at 56 sites along the Great Southern Reef off Australia (turnbull et al. 2021) found that in protected areas that prohibited all types of fishing and collection, diversity and cover of sessile invertebrates (reported as “sponges, soft corals, ascidians, etc.”) was similar compared to unprotected areas. See original paper for data. In addition, partially protected areas that restricted only some activities had lower diversity and cover of sessile invertebrates than unprotected areas. Sites either fully restricted all fishing and collecting (19 sites in 10 areas), restricted some types of fishing (18 sites in 11 areas) or were outside of a protected area (19 sites). Using data from an online database, a total of 1,971 photo quadrats (46% from fully protected, 33% from partially protected, 21% from unprotected) taken along 50 m transects were used to quantify diversity and cover of sessile invertebrates using the Collaborative and Annotation Tools for Analysis of Marine Imagery.

(Summarised by: William Morgan)