Novel methods for the design and evaluation of marine protected areas in offshore waters

摘要: There is strong international agreement on the need for marine protected areas to reverse pervasive human impacts oceans’ biodiversity. However, their implementation often hampered both by legal difficulties in defining reserves waters and patchy nature of data many offshore waters. We demonstrate use recent advances statistical learning conservation prioritization produce MPA scenarios with varying costs benefits New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone, based analyses distributions 96 demersal fish species. MPAs our most costeffective scenario would deliver nearly 2.5 times greater than those from equivalent-sized recently implemented at request fishers, lower cost them. Such results power quantitative, knowledge-based approaches, which can be applied high resolution oceanic scales.