The case for establishing ecosystem-scale marine reserves.

In 1872, the headwaters of the Yellowstone River and the surrounding forests, canyons and geyser basins were designated the world’s first national park. Since then, most nations of the world, whatever their size, have protected important biological, scenic, geological and historic places. That decision to make Yellowstone a national park set in motion a series of events with unforeseen but fortunate implications: Today, 12% of the Earth’s terrestrial landscapes are under some sort of protection (Roberts, 2007). Our relationship to the sea, however, has followed a profoundly different course. Although over two-thirds of the planet’s surface is water, little of the marine environment has been protected. As recently as 2008, less than one-tenth of one percent of the world’s oceans was safe from exploitation (Wood et al., 2008). Moreover, for many of the areas protected, effective management and enforcement has been weak or nonexistent. Highly protected reserves, similar to national parks for terrestrial ecosystems, have only recently been considered for marine waters (Lubchenco et al., 2003). Most of these, however, are small and relatively near the shore, and their environmental benefits are largely local. Even so, they often require enormous public support to overcome the entrenched opposition of extractive users, such as the commercial fishing industry. Few nations have been willing to tackle the challenge of establishing world-scale, ecologically significant, no-take marine reserves; and even when they do, the outcome is usually a compromise for ocean protection. Many people would be surprised to learn, for example, that even Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, one of the world’s largest protected ocean areas at 344,400 sq km, allows fishing in more than 65% of its waters (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 2004). Large, highly protected marine reserves where ecological processes and functions can operate much as they have for millennia have been virtually missing from the conservation and management portfolio for the ocean. The world’s great terrestrial parks provide an important service in preserving ecosystems, and wide-ranging species and in supporting non-extractive industries such as tourism. Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group and its partners, is dedicated to securing the establishment of very large marine reserves (Pew Environment Group, 2010). The project was launched to protect and preserve some of the Earth’s most important and unspoiled marine ecosystems. By establishing a handful of oceanic-scale reserves, we hope to change the conventional view that our oceans contain limitless resources that do not require the same type of protections as the Earth’s terrestrial environment. In 2003, the Pew Environment Group published a study of the marine environment in US waters to see how its management