A guide for planners and managers - IUCN

196 MARINE AND COASTAL
PROTECTED AREAS
2.4 Management Concepts
Lagoon or estuary ecosystems that are small and have little habitation and commercial
development are the easiest case for designation as Marine Protected areas (MPAs).
For these “pocket lagoons”, the priority can be given to conservation of resources and
maintenance of biodiversity. Conflicting uses are controllable. Economic benefits to
a local population are evident. The whole of such a system can easily be managed as
an MPA.
The other extreme is the heavily settled, industrialized, shipping port—e.g., New
York, Jakarta, or Rotterdam—which common sense tells you would not be a successful
MPA site. Yet there are numerous in-between cases of lagoons and estuaries where
valuable natural habitats remain and where pollution and other impacts are controllable
but, for which control is more appropriate to a Coastal Zone Management (CZM)
approach (Section I-6) and management solutions are more institutional than
ecological.
A solution is to use a joint CZM/MPA approach, where the desired MPA is
nested within the broader protection of a CZM programme. The Negombo Lagoon
in Sri Lanka is a good example of the joint CZM/MPA approach, whereby a CZM
approach was taken to resolve use conflicts and general environmental degradation
of the lagoon ecosystem and the wetland resources were set aside as protected areas.
The Negombo case history (Part III, Case No. 3) shows the value of disaggregating
the ecosystem into components and then giving protected status to those components
that merit MPA designation, such as wetlands.
Negombo Lagoon is of international significance for biodiversity and as a
refuge for migratory birds. But the lagoon and surrounding marshland area are
beset by a profusion of socioeconomic and environmental problems. Here, an
ecosystem-based approach was used to integrate environmental considerations into
a Master Plan based on biological, geophysical and socioeconomic information and
consensus building. The foundation of the Master Plan was zoning, which addressed
the issues of development needs, conservation value and social equity. Four zones were
delineated for the lagoon and surrounding area (a total of 10,700 ha) and endorsed
at stakeholder workshops. The zones were: 1) Conservation Zone (91% of wetland),
2) Buffer zone (6.4% of wetland); 3) Mixed Urban Zone (2.5% of wetland); and
4) Residential Zone (42% of total planning area). The Conservation Zone is the
equivalent of an MPA.
Planning an MPA programme for a small or undeveloped lagoon or estuary where
it may be feasible may still require adjustments outside the MPA boundaries; that is,
beyond the reach of MPA management authority. This can be aided by formation of
a Zone of Influence (ZOI) coordinating entity. The ZOI entity is a network composed
of agencies with authority in surrounding areas of the land or the sea, or both, that
lie outside the defined Coastal Zone but which need management attention (see