A critical look at the definition of indicators to assess the effectiveness of marine protected areas

Abstract

The international community's commitment to creating and managing a coherent network of marine protected areas (MPA) by 2012 leads us to reflect on the definition of MPA effectiveness and on how best to assess its impact through the development of appropriate indicators. This approach leads to a better understanding of the difficulties involved in developing these indicators, difficulties linked to the complexity of MPAs and the need to reach a compromise between the conservation of biodiversity, on the one hand, and socio-economic and governance-related interests, on the other.