A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

156 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROTECTED AREAS
Legislative effectiveness. Legislation that creates an individual marine protected
area must identify and where necessary establish institutional mechanisms with
adequate authority and responsibility for managing and administering the area.
Responsibility, accountability, and capacity must be specific and adequate to ensure
that the basic purposes and benefits of an area can be realized. Institutional support
involves not only government agencies, but also advisory bodies, fishery organizations,
tourism interests, local institutions and individual citizens, conservation clubs, and
other such non-governmental organizations.
Legislation for specific areas. Each protected area should be established by law,
with approval and any subsequent changes, including abolition, being subject to
endorsement by the highest body responsible for legislative matters in the country
or region, wherever possible. Establishment also includes the requirement that the
legislation contain enough detail for proper implementation and compliance,
delineation of boundaries, adequate authority, and resources for support of
infrastructure to carry out the required tasks. To ensure the permanence of coastal
and marine protected areas, and thus the lasting conservation of species and
ecosystems, it is necessary that full investigation of possible sites and maximum coordination
of planning and designation be undertaken with the support of top levels
of government.
Enforcement. A prerequisite for effective legislation is providing adequate
enforcement duties and powers, including as many incentives as possible for the
enforcement of rules and regulations by local people who use and benefit from the
area. Special attention should be given to enforcement in offshore areas, including
EEZs. Legislation should provide for strict penalties for breaches of regulations,
including loss of access rights in cases of infringements by user groups empowered
with management.
Comprehensiveness. Omnibus legislation (i.e., that serving several objectives
simultaneously) based on sustainable use of large marine areas should be seriously
considered. Such umbrella legislation can be justified on the grounds that world-wide
experience has shown that piecemeal protection of small marine areas together with
conventional fisheries management in unprotected areas usually leads to the
overexploitation of resources and the collapse, perhaps irreversible, of fish stocks.
Umbrella legislation can provide for the following:
– Conservation management over large areas, while maximizing economic use,
recreation, public education, and research
– Different degrees of use and protection in different zones within large areas
– Continued harvesting, in some zones, of living resources at sustainable levels
– Specification of the uses and activities that can proceed in each zone and the
conditions applying to these uses
– Multiple use