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Global effects of marine protected areas on food security are unknown

Nature volume 621, pages E34–E36 (2023)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 20 September 2023

The Original Article was published on 17 March 2021

arising from: E. Sala et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03371-z (2021)

Marine protected areas (MPAs) can be a powerful conservation tool and can positively or negatively affect food security. Sala et al.1 estimate the effects of a global network of MPAs designed for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and food security. However, the model used to project these benefits depends on a series of unrealistic and insufficiently tested assumptions that are inconsistent with its source material; using a more realistic model markedly changes the map of priority MPAs and reduces potential food benefits by 62%. This extreme sensitivity in the outcomes of MPA networks to highly uncertain parameters and modelling assumptions means that the true global effects of MPAs on food security remain unknown.

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Fig. 1: The change in global fishery yields and the percentage of global ocean in MPAs.
Fig. 2: Spatial differences in MPA outcomes between alternative assumptions.

Data availability

All data and materials needed to fully reproduce the results in this paper are publicly available at GitHub (https://github.com/DanOvando/mpas-and-food-unknown) and Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16709362.v5).

Code availability

All code needed to fully reproduce the results in this paper are publicly available at GitHub (https://github.com/DanOvando/mpas-and-food-unknown) and Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16709362.v5). All analyses were conducted in R (v.4.3.1)14.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the authors of Sala et al.1 for constructive discussions in the development of this paper, as well as A. MacNeil, B. Fulton and one anonymous reviewer for their comments.

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Author notes

  1. Daniel Ovando

    Present address: Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, La Jolla, CA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Daniel Ovando

  2. Northwest Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, USA

    Owen Liu

  3. Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Renato Molina

  4. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos Centro Nacional Patagónico-CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina

    Ana Parma

  5. Alaska Fishery Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Seattle, WA, USA

    Cody Szuwalski

Authors
  1. Daniel Ovando
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  2. Owen Liu
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  3. Renato Molina
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  4. Ana Parma
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  5. Cody Szuwalski
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Contributions

Analyses were performed by D.O. and A.P. All of the authors contributed to the conceptualization and writing of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniel Ovando.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods and sensitivity analyses, Supplementary Figs. 1–8, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary References.

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Ovando, D., Liu, O., Molina, R. et al. Global effects of marine protected areas on food security are unknown. Nature 621, E34–E36 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06493-8

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