They are presented as sanctuaries near the coasts or in the heart of the oceans. Refuges for whales, fish, algae and corals. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are essential shelters for marine ecosystems. As long as the borders are respected, human activities are regulated and destructive practices prohibited. This is precisely where the problem lies.
According to an international study published this Thursday, May 9 in the journal Conservation Lettersand in which the CNRS participated, “only a third of all of these areas are able to offer real protection on a planetary scale “. The researchers reached this conclusion by analyzing the 100 largest MPAs in the world, or 90% of the world’s protected marine areas.
“In a quarter of these marine protected areas, there is no management charter and more than a third authorize industrial activities such as large-scale commercial fishing which is the main cause of biodiversity loss in the oceans, underlines Joachim Claudet, CNRS ocean advisor and specialist in interactions between humans and the environment. Basically, two thirds of these marine areas do not have sufficiently strict regulations and do not protect anything. »
France, the second largest maritime territory in the world
There are currently more than 18,000 marine protected areas on the planet, spread over 30 million km2, or 8% of the ocean. And France is on the front line, which has the second largest maritime territory in the world behind the United States.
“It officially has 30% of marine protected areas but that’s just on paper because when you look at the activities that you can practice there, it’s business as usual,” sighs an ecologist. Between the industrial fishing lobby who above all does not want fishing, mining, oil and gas installations to be regulated… the absence of binding rules does not bring any benefit to biodiversity.”
Strictly protecting these areas would, however, according to the environmental association Bloom, beneficial effects for marine fauna and flora. “ In the absence of extractive human activities, marine protected areas allow a spectacular regeneration of ecosystems and marine species, assures the NGO. Fish biomasses in marine reserves are on average 670% higher than in surrounding unprotected waters. »
The researchers also noticed that the large marine protected areas were present “disproportionately in remote areas” and the overseas territories of certain states “to the detriment of habitats and important species located in regions of the ocean already heavily affected by human activities”.
“80% of areas with a high level of protection in France are located in the Southern Territories (the Crozet archipelago, the Kerguelen archipelago, the Saint-Paul and Amsterdam islands) and Antarctic (Adélie land and the Scattered Islands)where no one lives” underlines Joachim Claudet.
“Exploited with destructive fishing methods”
Conversely, Bloom states that “86% of so-called areas protected of Europe are intensely exploited with destructive fishing methods” and that “in more than two thirds of MPAs in northern Europe, trawling is 1.4 times more intense inside the supposedly protected area, than ‘outside ! “.
Between a supposedly protected area and another that is not, the difference is not obvious. In a previous study published in January 2021, the CNRS pointed out the fact that “59% of French Mediterranean waters are in MPAs” but only “0.1% under high or full protection”. And it’s even worse for the Atlantic-Channel-North Sea coast. Although almost 40% of the area in this area is under MPA status, only 0.01% “receives high or full protection”.
“The race that countries are engaged in to achieve the objective set by the United Nations of 30% of marine protected areas by 2030 must not lead us to a false sense of security,” believes Joachim Claudet. Because we can have the feeling that we are doing a lot, like France, when we are doing it very poorly…”.
Be careful, underlines the CNRS, not to confuse “quantity” of km2 classified as marine protected areas… and “quality” of the protection zone. The researchers also suggest “no longer taking into account MPAs whose level of protection is unknown or insufficient”.
