**4. Results: What is an MPA? Three founding illusions**

### **4.1 First illusion: classification offers protection**

### *4.1.1 MPA status: an activatable capital*

In seven of the case studies, the MPAs are granted management authority and specific regulations that define the "interior" and "exterior" of the MPA. However, in three of the cases studied, the statuses exist and the areas are considered to be Marine Protected Areas but they do not enjoy any specific protection. These MPAs have neither management authority, nor means of action or management plans for various reasons: (a). The studies conducted after classification and the management plan were never completed; (b). Local actors rejected the top-down creation of an exogenous MPA, and it cannot exist without their contributions; (c). The MPA received funding and existence, but funding per project was interrupted and protection measures no longer exist. Lastly, in three other cases, the protection measures and specific management regulations are subject to the mobilisation and agreement of third party bodies over which the MPAs have no hierarchical authority. This may be intended, as in the case of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park (HGMP), New Zealand: with the exception of five small marine reserves that cover only 0.3% of its perimeter, the policy principle of the HGMP is specifically to try and influence sectorial or territorial administrative acts via a forum, in the idea that what they decide has more impact for the environment than any conservation policy carried out without them. However, it is not always intentional, as is the case for the Saloum Delta in Senegal, where the biosphere reserve has no authority over initiatives (outside its central zone, which is a national park) and depends on satellite initiatives over which it has little control. These third-party bodies may mobilise their support, as in Senegal where they give *de facto* content to the biosphere reserve, or not: in this case, the status offers no protection.

This illustrates the fact that a status does not offer protection *a priori*: it is activatable capital, which can be likened to a specific territorial asset [36, 37]. The status transforms a resource (i.e. a latent potential) into an asset, whose value for a conservation measure depends on the way it is – or is not – mobilised. It is a specific asset in that it is attached to this area and enables it to set itself apart. However, its creation offers no guarantee of its activation.

#### *4.1.2 Thwarted institutionalisation processes: three key factors*

Its activation (or otherwise) is the result of the MPA's institutionalisation process, which we will endeavour to reconstitute, and which often faces stumbling blocks of various kinds. Three major obstacles emerge from the case studies.

Funding by project may lead to activation that is either uncompleted or temporary. For example, it is uncompleted in Chile in the Multi-Use Marine and Coastal Protected Area of Isla Grande de Atacama where, after a funding phase of several years, neither the management plan nor the governance body nor the funding mechanism were stabilised. In Lebanon, the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve has management authority but so little funding that its actions depend on projects that are periodically activated. It is also temporary in India, where the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve was active for six years before its funding was slashed to a tenth, leaving only enough to maintain an office located outside the perimeter: here, the periods of activation and eclipse are of longer duration. The same is true for Senegal where the IUCN was the *de facto* manager of the Saloum Delta Biosphere Reserve

before withdrawing because of lack of funding: but in this instance, the conservation initiative was taken on by a diverse group of admittedly uncoordinated actors, some of whom joined in view of the stakes highlighted by the status, which thus contributes to revealing a specific environmental value.

Social non-acceptance is a second factor that hampers the activation of the specific territorial asset that the MPA status represents. In Brazil, the trajectory of the Jureia Itatins patchwork of marine and coastal conservation units provides a distressing illustration. In 1986, a full protection area was established thanks to the action of environmentalists who thus managed to put an end to property development and nuclear projects along the coast. However, its promoters had "forgotten" the long-established presence of a Caiçara population, literally attached to its territory and traditional lifestyle and activities, especially fishing. A conflict resolution emerged in the early 2000s thanks to a "patchwork of conservation units" that allows for the coordinated and contiguous existence of "full protection" areas and Sustainable Development Reserves (RDS) where the Caiçara population would be assisted to adapt its activities to environmental issues. However, while the fully protected reserve is unacceptable for the Caiçaras, the sustainable development reserve is unacceptable for naturalists, for whom the state of Sao Paolo acted as spokesperson by filing a lawsuit against this measure. The patchwork was created in 2006, cancelled in 2009 while the participative drawing up of a plan was underway, re-established several months later, suspended in 2013 by a new lawsuit and reinstated in 2014: to date, none of the patchwork's conservation units has a management plan and the institutionalisation process has stalled.

In other cases, no process of this kind has seen the light of day, as in the example of the Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park in Chile, an MPA granted a status and recognised as such. Rejected by the Rapa Nui community, which was not consulted despite its considering this marine area as its own, it is theoretically managed by the national fisheries department but has neither initiatives nor a management plan. Nevertheless, a "rebound effect" was observed: although this Marine Park remains inactive, the resulting conflict marked the "Rapa Nui's social conservation boom" according to a community leader: the community appropriated the issue and took responsibility for the creation of an MPA. Admittedly, it is divided as to the form that this should take, but in 2018, obtained the creation of a Rapa Nui Multi-Use Marine and Coastal Protected Area.

Inter-institutional conflicts are the third major deciding factor in non-activation or de-activation and the relegation of a conservation initiative even if it has already been launched. In New Zealand, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park is struggling to find its place in the institutional landscape. Intended to influence sectorial or territorial policies implemented on the level of the Gulf, it faces challenges from public administrations that deny it any legitimacy. This is the case for the Department of Fisheries, which defends exclusive prerogatives, refusing to consider its actions on a territorial scale while it manages fishery stocks, with a representative stating that the HGMP is "a small town that wants to influence a province". The forum is also beset by divisions between representatives of the Tangata Whenua (Maori people) who want equal representation and elected officials who do not. In the background are conflicts between the Ministry of the Environment and the Fisheries Department,5 in addition to conflicts about democratic, representative, participative or customary legitimacy. This opposition caused the action to be suspended, but it bounced back to some extent elsewhere, beyond the field of the HGMP: a marine spatial planning mission launched by the HGMP and later suspended was taken up in its own right by an authority offering equal participation to the Tangata

<sup>5</sup> Scott (2016) describes potential – and sometimes actual – conflicts.

*Measuring Marine Protected Areas' Conservation Effort: A Different Look at Three… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98933*

Whenua. As for the situational analysis produced by the HGMP, this led to the setting up of a funding offer for environmental measures from the North Foundation. Here, again, the MPA status has not necessarily offered protection of the area, and the specific territorial asset it represents has not been activated: however, extensions exist that can be qualified as "rebound effects".

In Cambodia, the institutionalisation process that was already well underway has been undermined by inter-institutional opposition. The Marine Fisheries Management Area (MFMA) created in 2016, run by the fisheries administration and an international NGO, risks being diluted in a Marine Park created in 2018 in the same zone by the Ministry of the Environment, with different objectives and without any consultation. And when the MFMA examined the idea of creating a tourist tax to fund the inspection of activities, the Ministry of Tourism pipped them to the post and created the tax for its own benefit. Everything that had been gradually constructed with local stakeholders has been undermined.

An MPA status does not, then, guarantee protection of the area involved because the institutionalisation processes of the MPAs are often disrupted. Three factors that hamper or suspend the activation of the potential offered by the MPA status in terms of conservation initiatives have been identified. Nevertheless, rebound effects sometimes occur that allow a certain activation, elsewhere, in a different way and/or via actors who are not MPAs, as illustrated by the cases studied in Rapa Nui, Senegal and New Zealand.

#### **4.2 Illusion 2: the classified surface area is equal to the managed surface area**

Measuring protected marine areas in each country takes into account the entirety of perimeters classified as MPAs in both political discourse and scientific literature [38]. However, even when the institutionalisation process is completed, a large proportion of the perimeter is not subject to any specific measures. Our analysis reveals the need to distinguish two perimeters rather than a single one, one for active protection and one for passive protection, the meaning of which we shall clarify using several cases.

#### *4.2.1 The actively protected perimeter: various configurations*

An actively protected perimeter is one where, on one hand, the management authority is proactive, and on the other, specific measures exist to tackle issues and pressures, exceeding the mere acquisition of knowledge. This perimeter is often only a fraction of the area classified as an MPA, with varied, linear or "patchwork" geographical configurations.

Patches may exist within the perimeter: for example, Moorea's Marine Space Management Plan is based on 8 no-take zones in addition to two regulated fishing zones and zones with various vocations (mooring, species' feeding grounds, cetaceans' resting grounds, etc.), but a large proportion of the perimeter remains under national law with no specific protection. In the Hauraki Gulf, these patches are very small no-take zones: five marine reserves with scientific, recreational and educational objectives as well as a temporary no-take area managed by the Maoris under fishery laws. These areas are the result of non-coordinated initiatives: the rest (over 99.5% of the perimeter) currently enjoys no actions or specific regulations linked to the MPA status. The actively protected perimeter may only be a single patch, as is the case for the case study in India where the central zone of the Biosphere Reserve is a National Park, monitored by rangers, and the peripheral zone is no longer the target of specific initiatives. This patch is sometimes limited to "whatever is left" after being whittled away despite the MPA. In Lebanon, for example, the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve (TCNR) concerns both land and sea but its marine zone has neither regulations nor zoning nor specific initiatives and the TCNR includes a tourist zone besieged by pop-up restaurants each summer, a Palestinian refugee camp that is considered an entrenched camp and divides the North and South zones while its access road divides it from East to West, a border at risk of the construction of a motorway, zones used by farmers since the war and then a nature zone. The Reserve can only manage a very limited fraction of its perimeter, where it attempts to protect turtle nesting areas in particular.

Another configuration, this time linear, is the narrow, coastal strip such as the Taeanhaean National Marine Park in South Korea. Despite the MPA classification of a perimeter of around 326 km2, 89% of which is marine, no zoning or specific regulations are connected to the park and it does not work in coordination with the fishing industry. An oil spill led it to monitor seawater quality, but its area of intervention is essentially a narrow ribbon along the coast: it offers services to visitors (car park, campsite, tours) and carries out interventions for developing coastal paths, dune restoration, coastal reforestation, urban monitoring, monitoring of the oil spill recovery and environmental education. This is due to the country's history. Its industrialisation, led by an extremely interventionist regime, has given rise to environmental conflicts about living conditions around industrial complexes: in this context, National Parks have been created as areas for relaxation and recreation for urban dwellers, hence the focus on highly organised and landscaped access to heritage that is both natural and cultural, with Nature seen as inspired and inspiring. The park is a place to recharge ones batteries and contemplate a scene from nature (to a far greater extent than to protect biodiversity), which is why its interventions are focused on accessible zones and "viewpoints", in this case, the coastal linear strip.

#### *4.2.2 The passively protected perimeter*

The actively protected perimeter therefore makes up only a fraction of the classified perimeter. Elsewhere, the MPA management authority is neither proactive nor even active, but the rest of the classified perimeter nevertheless receives passive protection that depends on the mechanisms that we will describe with the help of several cases. For example, in Tyre, the perimeter's classification as a coastal nature reserve, combined with Tyre's UNESCO world heritage listing, has repeatedly been used to oppose "artificialisation" projects: the status has thus been used by the International Association for the Safeguard of Tyre to contest the route of the South Lebanon motorway in 2002, 2005 and 2010 and to postpone this threat. It is passive protection: actors are seizing on the status to oppose a threat to the environment affecting the perimeter without the intervention of the MPA.

In reality, passively protected perimeters exceed the borders of the perimeter covered by the status, although it is impossible to assess the area precisely, as we observed in India, Colombia and Korea. In the vicinity of the Taeanhaean National Marine Park, the Korean Government wished to create a 520 MW tidal-powered factory, but clashed with the KFEM (the largest federation of environmentalist organisations) and fishers before accepting the zone's classification as a Marine Park. The proximity of the Taeanhaean National Marine Park was used in the arguments of opponents who claimed that the project would have consequences within its perimeter. In Colombia, the existence of the Rosario and San Bernardo Corals National Natural Park was used in the same way by naturalist movements to oppose the digging of a branch of the Canal del Dique which crosses the country transporting polluting products; building the branch would have threatened the Varadero Reef that lies on the northern border of the National Natural Park. This is also

*Measuring Marine Protected Areas' Conservation Effort: A Different Look at Three… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98933*

passive protection that benefitted the asset without the intervention of the MPA. And lastly, there is the iconic case of India, iconic both because of the sheer scope of the project and the history of oppositions, the flames of which were fanned by the existence of the MPA. The brainchild of the colonial period, the Sethusamudram Project aims to dig an offshore canal to open up a shipping route to trade goods along the South East coast of India although today, the passage between India and Sri Lanka is impassable. After numerous disputes, in 1999, the State announced that it would complete the project in three years, then in 2005 announced the inauguration of the work, and approved the budget: but for the moment, the work that had started has come to a standstill because of opposition from various sources. These sources are religious (the route would affect Ram Setu, the causeway between India and Sri Lanka said to be built by the god Rama and his army of monkeys and a squirrel according to Hindu belief), socioeconomic (the state of Tamil Nadu reported the fears of fishers, and the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute was concerned about the effects on fisheries resources), and environmental. It is interesting to note that the presence of a National Park and the Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve (which the route is planned to pass through or close by) are systematically underscored in the arguments put forward. Despite the fact that to date, the Biosphere Reserve is almost inactive outside the central zone made up of the National Marine Park, its status is mobilised by various actors to protect the area. This represents passive protection.

Above all, the quantitative assessment of each country's conservation effort should take into account the surface areas under active protection, which are quantifiable, and secondly take into account the areas under passive protection. Without being strictly measurable, they can, at the least, be assimilated into the classified perimeter and nearby marine area.

#### **4.3 Illusion 3: the regulatory illusion: are the rules meant to be respected?**

#### *4.3.1 When the level of protection is associated with the level of regulation*

MPAs' effectiveness is often considered based on the legislative arsenal available to them. For this reason, Horta e Costa et al. [39] rank MPAs depending on the level of their regulatory protection, and qualify as unprotected any zones declared as MPAs when no legislative difference exists within and outside these zones for activities that may have an impact. The level of protection is associated with the level of regulation, making it an indicator that can "unambiguously distinguish the impacts of uses" ([39], p. 192). However, among our case studies, the most regulated MPAs are sometimes those where a culture of illegal harvesting develops, either from lack of monitoring or from the lack of alternatives for very vulnerable populations. More generally, simple observations in situ reveal that, whatever the MPA's level of institutionalisation, many regulations are not respected: does this render them meaningless? A more detailed analysis shows that managers distinguish between regulations that they insist are respected and regulations that are in place but not pursued in the event of violations, and instead used as a medium to inform, raise awareness or negotiate with those responsible for certain pressures. The reality is, then, more complex that a simple dichotomy between MPAs that are effective because based on regulations and MPAs that are not.

An initial approximation lies in the idea that an MPA without specific regulatory means is unprotected. Firstly, we observe that, among our case studies, if an MPA is a more regulated area than elsewhere, it is either because it is endowed with specific rules, or because it activates rules that are in force there as elsewhere, but elsewhere are neither known nor enforced. For example, in Moorea, the manager of the

Marine Space Management Plan strives to ensure that, outside the no-take zones, regulations are applied regarding the mesh size of nets, which remain ignored elsewhere but which are applicable on a national level. The same is true in Tyre, Lebanon: the city hall, which chairs the Reserve's management committee, carries out inspections to ensure that the prohibition of fishing with nets less than 500 m from the shore within the Reserve is respected – a regulation that applies everywhere, in theory. Generic regulations are revealed and activated independently of the existence of regulations specific to the MPA. Our case studies then reveal numerous mechanisms of collective self-discipline based on tacit conventions or self-regulation, which exist independently of any legal regulation: co-constructed with or without the MPA and appropriated by stakeholders, they are often far more effective than the law but invisible to the eyes of those who examine only legal regulations, such as Horta e Costa [39] and Zupan et al. [17]. For example, in India's Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, seaweed harvesters have established their own rules (it is forbidden to damage the coral reefs, to make fires in the mangrove, a 12-day period per month with no harvesting has been established, etc.), respect for which is based on social pressure and, in some villages, community-based surveillance. Trawl fishing has also drawn up rotation regulations in an attempt to limit over-fishing, and these regulations are respected without the need for a law. A second approximation involves the idea that the impacts of certain uses are reduced when covered by regulations: this assumes that, on the one hand, these rules are respected, and on the other, that they were established to be respected. However, comparative analysis reveals recurrences in the multiple functions attributed to the regulations, often used for dialogue purposes rather than to compel people to obey them.
