Marine Protected Areas and climate change: Adaptation and mitigation synergies, opportunities and challenges

The ocean is a major player in the regulation of the world’s climate system. Future oceanic climatological changes are inevitable as a result of the increased content of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and even if emissions were drastically reduced in the medium term this trend will continue to be expressed and will amplify over the very long term. Such physico-chemical changes in the ocean are associated with significant effects on marine ecosystems.

Marine Protected Areas are one mechanism to manage human activities and ultimately reduce the associated pressures on the environment. Such management will contribute to the maintenance or increased resilience of ecosystems and the sustainable use of ecosystem services. Marine Protected Areas may form a network of observatories and ecological and climate monitoring stations, fostering partnerships with the scientific community and promoting exchanges MPAs can help provide the necessary connectivity between suitable habitats for species to meet the challenges of climate change forced movements.