Basic Questions Regarding Marine Conservation Agreements
The prospect of private organizations acquiring or directing rights and responsibilities over ocean and coastal environments often stirs up questions that should be addressed before developing and implementing Marine Conservation Agreement (MCA) projects. While people usually understand the need to conserve coastal areas, fisheries, and water quality, many times they do not understand how agreement mechanisms can achieve conservation of ocean and coastal environments. Indeed, even among seasoned marine scientists and managers, ownership and user rights, management options, and conservation strategies for the lands and resources within ocean and coastal waters are not well understood.
This section of the toolkit answers many of the basic questions about MCAs:
- What conservation Actions can be implemented using MCAs?
- What happens Afterwards, when an MCA ends?
- Can Alternatives be used if MCAs cannot be applied?
- How are Boundaries determined in marine waters?
- What is the relationship between MCAs and Climate Change ?
- What are the Controversies surrounding MCAs?
- What Criteria are used to determine if MCAs are feasible?
- What Goals can MCAs achieve?
- What are the outstanding Issues related to MCAs?
- What are the Lessons learned from MCA field projects?
- In what Locations can MCAs be used?
- How does Management work in the marine environment?
- What are the different MCA Models that can be used?
- Why do we Need MCAs ?
- What are the Pros and Cons of MCAs?
- What Research has been done on MCAs?
- What are the Targets of MCAs?
- What are the different Types of MCAs?
- What is the Valuation process for submerged lands, aquatic resources and ecosystem services?
Image: Tomorrow we will study Saturn... Honoré Daumier, 1846. Source: Brandeis University, Honoré Daumier Digitized Lithographs, http://dcoll.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/1814