Some good news regarding China’s MPA’s
https://hakaimagazine.com/news/chinas-surprisingly-robust-system-of-marine-protection/?omhide=true&utm_source=Hakai+Magazine+Weekly&utm_campaign=9b9de9c767-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_06_COPY_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0fc1967411-9b9de9c767-121686094
"In the end, the team found that China has 326 protected areas covering almost
13 percent of its territorial waters—and they are still not entirely sure they
found all of them. That exceeds the United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity’s target of protecting 10 percent of coastal and marine areas by
2020. Many countries have now expanded that target to 30 percent by 2030,
though China has not made that commitment."
"Perhaps most intriguingly, Pikitch and her team found that while so-called
paper parks—MPAs that exist on paper but have little to no enforcement—are a
big problem for marine conservation around the world, that does not appear to
be an issue in China. “All of them are implemented, with staff, a management
plan, regular surveys, and many even have interpretive centers,” Pikitch says.
“None are paper parks.”
"Habitats such as underwater canyons and seamounts beyond the continental shelf
have no protection. Protecting those areas could be politically difficult, he
says, because that is where the country’s industrial fleet is fishing.
China’s industrial fleet also has a bad track record when it comes to illegal,
unregulated, and unreported fishing, and exploiting the coasts of developing
countries by engaging in inequitable or opaque access agreements. Having strong
conservation protections at home needs to be coupled with better practices
internationally, says Chou.
“China could have a tremendous role in marine protection because they are
present in every ocean,” he says. “But I don’t feel they are stepping up to the
plate yet.”
Shirley Johnson
thusone@xxxxxxx
