IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA)

All people, regardless of where they live, depend upon the existence of healthy marine ecosystems. While the role that Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) can play in promoting the health of the oceans and seas has been widely acknowledged, progress on building a network of MPAs has been slow to date. This can be in part explained by the fact that MPAs involve a host of issues that go much further than conservation alone.

This Plan of Action has been developed by WCPA/Marine and partners around the world as a result of an extensive consultation process. It describes the added value that WCPA/Marine brings to the global community working on MPAs and identifies the renewed need for urgent action to protect oceans and seas. It is intended to help bridge the gap between existing work on MPAs, and what is needed in order to put in place effective and lasting networks of MPAs throughout the world.

The main aim of this report is to assess progress towards a network of ecologically representative and effectively managed MPAs that meets international obligations for conservation of the Mediterranean Sea. Specifically, results of this survey were used to measure Mediterranean progress towards the CBD targets of establishing a coherent network of MPAs by 2012 and to protect at least 10% of the Mediterranean Sea by 2010.