Benefits of Marine Protection for California’s People and Communities
California is home to one of the largest networks of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the world, serving as a global model for marine conservation. Covering over 16% of California’s coastal waters, this extensive Network of 124 MPAs provides much-needed ecological benefits for a wide array of important species and habitats, including rocky intertidal areas, estuaries, kelp forests, and deep underwater canyons. Healthy marine ecosystems lead to direct economic, cultural, and well-being benefits for coastal communities. Significant effort has been made to understand the influence of California’s MPA Network on ocean ecosystems, yet much less focus has been on the human-centered benefits and outcomes from the Network.
Understanding the benefits MPAs provide people and communities is essential to foster stronger marine stewardship and to directly support ocean-based communities. Accordingly, more effort is needed to evaluate the benefits and outcomes of the MPA Network for the people and communities of California.
At the March 2025 Council meeting, OPC took a giant leap forward in addressing this critical gap by approving one of the largest investments to date that advances human-centered research and monitoring for California’s MPA Network. The $1.65 million investment will fund three projects for two years, and one working group, to expand research and monitoring on human uses in MPAs and to empower underrepresented communities to engage in MPA management.
Exploring the Intersection of Ocean Access Benefits and Environmental Change
The first project will support the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation to scale up an existing project exploring the intersection of ocean access, ocean benefits, MPAs, and environmental change for California residents in five new counties: Del Norte, Humboldt, Sonoma, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Primarily focused on marginalized and tribal communities, this project will build new partnerships and develop key policy recommendations for MPA managers to increase long-term ocean benefits, enhance ocean access for all, and support community adaptation to environmental change.
Improving Compliance and MPA Effectiveness
The second project will scale out a project by the MPA Watch program to understand factors influencing MPA compliance and broader human uses in MPAs across five regions. With matching funds from the Resources Legacy Fund, this project will help state agencies tailor management strategies to local needs and can improve overall compliance and effectiveness of MPAs.
The third project will enable the expansion of the MPA Collaborative Network’s Building Pathways to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for California’s Coast and Ocean program, an initiative to support diverse voices and perspectives from historically marginalized communities who are connected to marine ecosystems and California’s MPA Network. It will also support the MPA Collaborative Network’s engagement work with tribal communities and with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Law Enforcement Division (LED) and enforcement partners looking to increase MPA compliance and enforcement effectiveness.
Developing Scientific Guidance for Human-Centered Monitoring
Finally, to directly inform the update to the MPA Monitoring Action Plan, the Ocean Science Trust will facilitate an MPA and social science working group to develop scientific guidance for monitoring human-centered outcomes of MPAs, including the development of key research and monitoring priorities, indicators, and methods. Ultimately, this effort will help California develop an urgently needed framework to better understand the effects of MPAs on California’s coastal communities.
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Together, these projects will inform active management of California’s MPA Network and an update to the state’s MPA Monitoring Action Plan to be inclusive of who uses MPAs. By directly involving communities and people in data collection and building community partnerships around the state, this work will provide critical information on human relationships with California’s MPA Network and reveal how healthy marine ecosystems benefit California’s people and communities.