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Why?
Why?
According with the Reef Resilience Network, Marine protected areas (MPAs) play an important role in protecting critical habitats, fostering biodiversity, and managing fisheries while providing many related co-benefits to coastal communities, including coastal protection, sense of place, and eco-tourism income, among other impacts. Despite their ecological, social, and economic value, many MPAs are underfunded, with 65% of MPAs reporting that they have insufficient budget for management or enforcement of their area.
Common funding mechanisms such as government allocations, donor contributions, tourism revenue, grants, and philanthropy are frequently utilized to support MPAs, especially at the inception of a new protected area. However, these initial funding streams are often insufficient to sustain the ongoing resource needs essential for maintaining effective management activities. Challenges such as the phasing out of initial grants, budget cuts resulting from shifts in government priorities, and external threats impacting tourism revenue can significantly diminish the reliability of funding.
This can leave an MPA that looks ideal on paper unmanageable and unenforceable in reality. To help prevent the occurrence of these “paper parks,” it is of utmost importance to consider their economic and social benefits (such as enhancing livelihoods and economic opportunities for local communities) and the funding mechanisms necessary to support those benefits.
In Central America we have "paper parks", which only exist in legal decrees and are not managed, and Dos Mares indicates that we also have PASIVE protected areas, meaning that although they have personnel, their management programs, especially the financing and public use programs, are not giving the expected results.
ACTIVE marine protected areas are comparable to an "actively managed area", as described in the MPA Guide published by Blue Nature Alliance where "enabling conditions" would allow a protected area to be "actively managed"
The success and operational sustainability of marine protected areas in Central America must begin now!
How to create an ACTIVE protected area?
How to create an ACTIVE protected area?
Raise the financing professional capacity and authority recognition of park rangers for the integral sustainability management of the protected area.
Build trust, strong local leadership, and ongoing partnerships with local users.
Increase business vision in the management of the protected area.
Redirect financial resources towards the own structure and operation of the protected area.
Guarantee the transparency of financial resources.
Improve, boost and publicize the management programs of the protected area.
Dos Mares argues that in Central America, most of society does not recognize the value of protected areas. This lack of recognition is due to the inability to clearly perceive the services that these areas provide, especially in the context of socioeconomic challenges such as poverty, corruption, and crime. Limited government budgets further hamper the development of strong professional training for park rangers and the recognition of their authority by society, and infrastructure and visitor services within protected areas are weak and vulnerable to natural and man-made damage. Staff in these areas cannot always successfully maintain field management programs for public use, conservation, research, surveillance, and control, and it is for these reasons that we call them passive protected areas.
Explore here the Map of the Marine Protected Areas of Central America
Passive protected areas must be transformed into ACTIVE protected areas to
CREATE VALUE for society
MISSION: Support the coastal marine protected areas of Central America in the fulfillment of their management programs and the scope of their financial capacity.
VISION: To be an organization recognized worldwide for its successful results in the operational consolidation and financial stability of the marine protected areas of Central America.
We can't solve tomorrow's problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when created them Albert Einstein
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