Marine protected area targets

The Convention of Biological Diversity is set to meet in October 2021 and will discuss adopting a new target of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030. Over the last two decades, there has been a drastic increase in the number of large-scale marine protected areas (MPAs) driven mainly by international MPA targets and a “bigger is better” approach to conservation. In this episode, Megan Swanson and Sage Riddick explore how these often remote ocean spaces can still have important social impacts by looking at two cases: the Chagos Marine Protected Area and the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.