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Marine Protect Area: Puerto Rico Increases Ocean Protection to 27% · How To Protect The Ocean

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I am happy to say that a new marine protected area has been
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established in Puerto Rico that brings their
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total of protected area in their territorial waters
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to 27% and contributes
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to an MPA system that stretches from Puerto Rico to Cuba, adding
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to more areas protection. That means shallow coral reefs, seagrass
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beds, and mangroves for sea turtles and manatees to
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play around with for a long, long time. This is
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a huge deal to establish more protected areas, not only because
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there is a plan to protect 30% of land and
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water by 2030, but it also goes
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to having more protection for our oceans and
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to be able to protect species, not only the manatees, not only
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sea turtles, but other fish and invertebrates that fall within
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those areas. It's not an easy thing to establish a
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marine protected area. It's actually really difficult to do so. So
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we're gonna talk about the intricacies of this protected area, what's
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going to happen in the future, because it's just the beginning, and
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how we're going to go through with it and make sure that everything is protected. On
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this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, let's start the
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show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Let's get into the show, because
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we are here to talk about some great news this Monday, whenever
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you're listening to this, or if you're listening to this on Tuesday. This episode is all about
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good news. A new marine protected area in Puerto
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Rico. Puerto Rico has established
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the Vega, Baja, and Manatee I don't know if I'm pronouncing it
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properly obviously it's in it's in Spanish underwater ground
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underwater gardens a 202 square kilometers space
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MPA off the central coast off the central north
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coast. It's a 77 square mile for
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my American friends. The MPA encompasses coral
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reefs, mangrove forests, and seagrass beds, providing a
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habitat for over a dozen threatened species, including the
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greater Caribbean manatee and various sea turtles. This
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designation results from a 16-year effort
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by local communities and NGOs aiming to protect
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vital ecosystems while supporting small-scale fishing
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and ecotourism. So this is
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not an easy feat to be able to designate a marine protected area
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like this. It's 202 square kilometers, which is big for the island of
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Puerto Rico. It's a 16-year process. Now,
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I want to talk a little bit about what would go into
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that 16-year process. This is a process with
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the best part of this article, which I found on Manga Bay News, and I'll link to
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it in the show notes, is it's community-led. That's
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a huge thing. So it's there for ecotourism. It's
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there for the artisanal fishers and
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the fishing community in there. This is where they came to
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the table at some point during the process, hopefully at the beginning.
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It doesn't give a lot of information on the article in terms of the history of
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it. But they were able to come together and say, hey, you know
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what? This is an important area. This 202 square kilometer
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area is an important area to protect because it provides a lot for our
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fishing. We depend on this resource, fishing, tourism, and
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a number of other recreational features for that area to
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be able to come to the table and use this area sustainably
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for a number of years to come, like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years
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to come, as long as this designation is in place. They realized, the
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community realized that this was an important habitat to protect, and
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so they got together And over that process, over that 16 years,
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they punched out an MPA that we are going to see today. And
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it's not just an MPA just where it's one
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whole MPA. Right now, it's probably just one whole MPA. The goal
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in the future is to try and put in different management areas
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to manage different activities that happen within
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the MPA. That's a very important part of this, because
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we realize that having one big MPA of like it's
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202 Square kilometers. This is a huge area to monitor and
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to make sure that you know Everything is is abided by
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right? We don't want fishers coming in and overfishing within the area or fishing
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at all within the area if they're not allowed to There might be some spots within
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the larger MPA There might be some little spots that are very that
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are absolutely necessary to protect So it means no
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fishing nobody goes in there not even scientists and we may see
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a management area That's just a reserve where you can't get in at all
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and There might be areas where it's just science that is able to conduct
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monitoring practices to make sure they can evaluate the success
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or even the detriment of the marine protected area depending on what happens
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in the future. There could be areas where you allow sea kayaking or
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scuba divers or snorkeling as a recreational area. There could
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be areas for artisanal fishers at certain points of time.
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Having any extractive activities that's within an MPA under
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the new definitions isn't necessarily an MPA. So it'll be interesting to
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see how this is defined if they truly want it
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as a MPA that's internationally recognized as
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a marine protected area. MPA is a short for Marine Protected Area.
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Now the other important thing here is there's
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a co-management planning practice. So ongoing efforts to developing
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a co-management plan to balance human activities. That's what
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it's all about. So it's not just the government up from the top saying you
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can't go in there, it's The local community that's coming
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together and saying, OK, here we have all these areas. This is what happens
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from our monitoring and our traditional knowledge that we have about this
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area. We know what goes on. They know best. Right. The government
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officials may not be in the area. They may not be familiar with the area as
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much as fishers, as much as surfers, as much as scuba
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divers or snorkelers. So they will rely on the knowledge from
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the users to be able to inform them to make a
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better management decision. Because when you have the buy in from the community, That's
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when you start coming up with great MPAs and successful MPAs
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where you start to see a growth in the abundance and the size like
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the biomass of fish within a fishery species or
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within a habitat. You start seeing healthier ecosystems, so
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healthier habitats, seagrass habitats, mangrove forests, coral
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reefs that Tipify this area so when you
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see those are healthy because there's no fishing. There are no boating in
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there where it can get damaged by Propellers or damaged by
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anchors the big one of the big things with seagrass forest is or
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seagrass meadows and seagrass beds is that when people go
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to either fish or do whatever they're doing within the water they
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anchor down and what happens is they'll see like a seagrass area
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and they'll say oh this can handle an anchor because it's just the bottom
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they may not do it on a coral reef but if they see like a
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sandy bottom or even like seaweed down there or
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you know seagrass They might just anchor into there and
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that might get destroyed over time. You might see
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these anchor drags along the bottom. You'll see this
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space within the seagrass meadows. This is one of the things when I spoke to
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Project Seagrass was one of the major problems
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within, I believe it was the Mediterranean at the time, and other places we
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see around, was anchoring boats. So what they'll do is, a
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lot of marine protected areas, what they'll do as a service is they'll create these buoy systems.
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And the buoys are anchored somewhere else where it's not on the seagrass, but you
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can actually have boats above the seagrass to be able to anchor
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to this boat buoy and not actually damage the
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seagrass bed below. Because seagrasses are biodiversity hotspots.
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They are areas that have known to have more
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biodiversity than coral reefs, more biodiversity than
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mangrove forests, right? Just different assemblages of
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fish and invertebrates that are young and old and
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big and small. and invertebrates as well, and you just start
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to see them all come together. They have a lot of hiding spots within these
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seagrass meadows, and it's a very important, you know, it's
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a very important habitat for this, you know, area, for
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this complex. It's like the coral reef, seagrass meadow, as
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well as mangrove forest. So you need to protect those from
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any kind of physical damage, as well as any kind of fishing damage too,
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right? You have the mangrove forests, which are very coastal, like
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right along the coast. Those need to be protected a
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lot from physical changes. So if there's an actual protection, like
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an actual marine protected area, it's easier from a coastal perspective
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to protect those areas because we can actually see it with our eyes. It's
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very difficult to see how a coral reef is
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doing or see how a seagrass bed is doing because they're submerged underwater.
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Now, a lot of times they're clear water and you can do a lot of survey assessments, but
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it's expensive to get a boat to go out there. It's not like having a land marine protected
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area, or a land protected area, not marine, a protected area on
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land, and you can actually see the changes, you know, whether you
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fly a drone over it, or you can see trees coming down, or
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what have you, right? Damages because of development or anything like
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that. It's easier to see a land protected area than it
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is to see what's happening underwater. So then it's less expensive,
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of course. So it's good to have that coastal area, but
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that's another area for like it's a nursery ground. It
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could be a ground where, you know, there's like a rearing area where
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young fish and invertebrates are growing and they're eating
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specific foods before they go off to the seagrass meadow or even coral reef.
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And then of course you have the coral reefs, which is sort of the eye
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candy of this complex and probably a lot of tropical areas.
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They have a lot of stuff that is happening to them from algal growth
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because of increased nutrients to climate change. So we need to
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take away the human effect, the direct human effect of
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this area of this habitat that can disrupt this habitat right
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so you're looking at fishing or boating or or controlling snorkeling
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and scuba diving sessions from damage from
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people touching and things like that you want to make sure you take away all of those
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and allow fish to be around there you have the herbivores who take
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care of the algae to make sure there's no overgrowth in algae And
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then, of course, you have other fish around there that will be good for
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fisheries later on. They'll be good for the diversity of the habitat. Coral
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reefs are a very diverse habitat, as you probably already know if
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you've been listening to this podcast at any point in time. Coral
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reefs are one of the most diverse habitats in the world, and they
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are great to look at. They're a great tourist attraction, but they are very, very
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sensitive to changes in water quality, to changes
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in any kind of disruption, physical disruption or anything like that. So we need
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to make sure we protect our coral reefs. So all three habitats are
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very important to the complex of the ecosystem that's
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in Puerto Rico. And having this protection really truly
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helps from a biological standpoint, as well as a social standpoint, right?
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We talk about how much money this resource provides
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you know, the Puerto Rico, the local community in Puerto Rico to say, Hey,
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we actually need this stuff. You know, we, we, we fish
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off of this, we get money from tourism off of this, you know, so
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it's a very important. aspect
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of, you know, the coastal community, and to make sure
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that's a healthy coastal community, because managing, you know, one of the one
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of the things that I've always heard, and I've always liked this, and
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Dr. Ed Heinozon, a good friend of mine that I've known through the
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podcast, and through just a colleague of mine, He
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has said to me time and time again, to manage the ocean, you have to
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manage the people. So looking at society that uses
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the ocean or that may come into contact with
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the ocean indirectly or directly is really, really important. Marine
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protected areas offer that importance. It's a huge,
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huge part of conservation. It's a huge tool that
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we need to use. And that's why there's a 30 by 30 sort
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of deadline by 2030. So 30% of marine protected
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areas and 30% of the land will be protected by
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2030, hopefully. It looks like Puerto Rico has achieved that or
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close to achieve that because around their territory waters, they have 27% of
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their waters protected. That's a huge, huge accomplishment.
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Now, I don't know the rest of their marine protected areas and how well they're protected,
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but it'll be interesting to see if they follow the same type of formula
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that they did in this one to be able to apply and
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get a community-backed marine protected area. Not an
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easy thing to do. This took 16 years to do. Who knows how long
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the next 3% will take to get them up
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to that 30%. but I would love to hear from you. People who
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are in this audience who are from Puerto Rico, is this big news
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for you? Do you hear about it a lot on
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your news or newspapers or anything like that, local radio? I
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would love to hear your thoughts on this. And anybody else who has been
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to Puerto Rico, has a tie to Puerto Rico, or just in love with the
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ocean and around those areas, I would love to hear from you as
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well to find out what you think of this story. And do you think it's
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a great thing or not? Obviously, it's a good thing, but I'd love to know more about
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the intricacies of this marine protected area going in. So
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hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. And don't
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forget, if you're watching this on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe and
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every time we publish. So that's it for today's episode. I
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want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, and this
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is a great day knowing that there's a marine protected area in
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place again. I want to thank you so much for joining us. Have a great day.