Marine protected areas of South Africa


The marine protected areas of South Africa are in an area of coastline or ocean within the exclusive economic zone of the Republic of South Africa that is protected in terms of specific legislation for the benefit of the environment and the people who live in and use it. An MPA is a place where marine life can thrive under less pressure than unprotected areas. They are like underwater parks, and this healthy environment can benefit neighbouring areas.
There are a total of 42 marine protected areas in the South African EEZ, after consolidation, with a total area of 15.5% of its Exclusive Economic Zone. The target was to have 10% of the oceanic waters protected by 2020. All but one of the MPAs are in the exclusive economic zone off continental South Africa, and one is off the Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean. Without the large Prince Edward Islands MPA, South Africa has 41 MPAs covering 5.4% of its continental EEZ. This achieves United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14.5 for conservation of marine and coastal areas, and the Convention on Biological Diversity Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 Aichi Target 11.
People can take part in a wide range of non-consumptive activities in all of South Africa's MPAs, and some parts of some MPAs are zoned for limited consumptive activities. Some of these activities require a permit, which is a form of taxation.

Definition

The International Union for Conservation of Nature defines a marine protected area as:
A clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated, and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values.

A marine protected area is a protected area of sea or estuary. These areas can range from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. In some situations, MPAs also provide revenue for countries, potentially equal to the income that they would have if they were to grant companies permissions to fish.
As of August 2016 there are more than 13,650 MPAs, encompassing 2.07% of the world's oceans, with half of that area - encompassing 1.03% of the world's oceans - receiving complete "no-take" designation.

Purpose and function

If there is no defined long-term goal for conservation and ecological recovery and extraction of marine resources occurs, the IUCN does not recognise a region as a marine protected area.
The purposes stated for declaring South African marine protected areas include:
  • Contribution towards a national and global representative system of marine protected areas by providing protection to benthic and pelagic ecosystems in various regions, including coastal habitats such as sandy beaches, rocky shores and estuaries offshore habitats such as soft sediment and reef systems, gravel, mud, sandy, and rocky habitats, shelf edge, submarine canyons and slope habitats, seamount and associated deep sea ecosystems, and open ocean pelagic habitats.
  • Providing protection for sites of special sensitivity and sites that are critically endangered
  • Providing large contiguous conservation areas, and links between inshore marine habitats with those further offshore, and providing contiguous conservation areas between marine, estuarine and terrestrial habitats.
  • Protecting threatened seabed ecosystems, such as mud habitats, untrawled rocky shelf habitat and untrawled shelf edge areas.
  • Conserving and protecting the biodiversity and ecological processes associated with these ecosystems, including threatened seabird species, threatened fish species and economically important invertebrate species.
  • Providing an appropriate environment for research and monitoring of ecosystem health and biodiversity
  • Contribute to sustainable marine and coastal ecotourism by zonation for activities which yield socio-economic benefits and protecting and promoting scenic areas and their eco-tourism opportunities
  • Facilitating fisheries management by protecting spawning grounds and spawning stock, nursery,foraging, aggregation and refuge areas, allowing stock recovery, and improving abundance in adjacent areas for overexploited species, linefish and sharks;
  • Facilitating sustainable use of linefish, rock lobster, abalone and intertidal resources
  • Protection the biota or specific species and the environment, biodiversity and ecosystems that support them, including vulnerable benthic habitats, tropical and cold water coral reefs, canyons which are coelacanth habitat and important migratory corridors for seabirds, turtles, sharks and other fish
  • Providing reference sites and environments for research and monitoring, including areas in good ecological condition and areas which may be indicators of impacts of climate change, and allowing for research on ecosystem impacts and recovery, and habitat requirements of economically important species
  • Protecting areas of important cultural heritage, including archeological middens and fish traps, South African National Heritage sites and World Heritage sites.
  • Conserving and protecting a fossilised forest.
MPAs have been shown to protect biodiversity and stocks of economically important marine organisms, and are also considered to protect cultural heritage, provide educational and recreational opportunities, provide sustainable employment, and stimulate tourism, and may assist with resilience to climate change.

Planning

Planning scenarios for site selection analysis include seabed protection, pelagic biodiversity, threatened species, sustainability of small pelagic and demersal trawl fisheries, inshore, offshore and crustacean trawl bycatch management, a range of sector-specific analyses exploring areas where spawning or nursery grounds can be protected, as well as integrated analysis of all targets for all objectives including minimising and spreading impact on industry.
Scenarios also considered industry targets and spreading the impact fairly, and the impact on rights holders who operate in fixed areas such as diamond mining and petroleum extraction.
In recent planning, areas were considered in combination, with a recommendation to implement several new MPAs as a set, as this would speed up the process and allow a spatially efficient network that meets multiple combined objectives and minimises cumulative impact on industry. This plan was followed with the 2019 set of mostly offshore MPAs.

History

South Africa's first MPA was the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area, which was declared in 1964. Several early MPAs were declared in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 18 of 1998, and they are currently declared through the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act 2003
The South African Association for Marine Biological Research was established by marine scientists who in 1947 recognised the unique character of the northern Zululand coast, which was later described as the Delagoa inshore ecoregion. The Oceanographic Research Institute recognised that protection was necessary for effective conservation and in collaboration with the Natal Parks Board, established the St. Lucia Marine Reserve which was proclaimed in 1979, followed by the proclamation of the Maputaland Marine Reserve in 1986. These are now consolidated in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, which was proclaimed as South Africa's first World Heritage Site in 1999. After nearly 20 years of work the Aliwal Shoal Marine Protected Area was proclaimed in 2004, along with the Pondoland Marine Protected Area, at the time the largest of South Africa's MPAs, and several others. By 2018, South Africa had 25 formally declared Marine Protected Areas, of which 24 are in the coastal waters of the continental territory, and one is in the waters of the Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean.
Conservation authorities took into account the lack of protection for offshore benthic and pelagic habitats, and the Department of Environmental Affairs developed the National Protection Area Expansion Strategy which was approved for implementation in March
2009. Subsequently, ten focus areas were identified for offshore biodiversity protection, and on 24 October 2018, 20 of the proposed 22 new MPAs were approved by Cabinet, and were proclaimed by the South African government on 24 May 2019, along with regulations for their management, in Government Gazettes Nos. 42478 and 42479 of 2019. Most of the new areas were slightly reduced from the recommended areas. The area proclaimed was 54214 km2, while the proposed area was 68578 km2. In some cases new areas were combined with existing MPAs, and the total number rose to 42.
Operation Phakisa is a South African government initiative intended to accelerate the implementation of solutions on critical development issues identified in the National Development Plan 2030. Phakisa means "hurry up" in Sesotho and is intended to indicate urgency. The intention is to produce clear targets and plans and involves collaboration between key stakeholders in public and private sectors, academics and civil society organisations. The purposes stated for the new MPAs include facilitation of sustainable fisheries and use by other economic sectors, as well as the protection of offshore species and ecosystems. The 2008 NPAES was revised in 2016 and prioritised conservation of the areas gazetted following the Phakisa process.
The Marine Protection Services and Ocean Governance focus area is tasked with the development of an integrated governance framework for the exclusive economic zone to allow sustainable growth of the ocean economy.