Towards the 2012 marine protected area targets in Eastern Africa

The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity has set ambitious targets for the establishment and management of protected areas. For the oceans, the overall aim is to establish, by 2012, an effectively managed, representative, global system of marine protected areas (MPAs) covering 10% of all marine ecological regions, comprising both multiple use areas and strictly protected areas. An analysis of data for three countries in Eastern Africa, where considerable efforts to promote MPAs by many agencies have been made over the past decade, shows that rapid progress has been made towards achieving this target. Since the first MPAs were established in the 1960s and 1970s, 8.7% of the continental shelf in Kenya, 8.1% in Tanzania and 4.0% in Mozambique has been designated, with the size of recently protected sites markedly larger than earlier sites. Commitments to expand the MPA networks in these countries would, if implemented, largely achieve the 10% coverage target. The location of existing marine protected areas shows good correlation with known sites of high species diversity; and coral reefs and Important Bird Areas are well represented. Management effectiveness of MPAs is also improving. However, there are major constraints to meeting the MPA target in these countries. Many habitats and species are not yet fully represented, the area closed to fishing is less than the recommended 20–30%, and capacity building is needed to improve many aspects of management. Furthermore, despite considerable investment in monitoring of coral reefs and other coastal habitats, the data available do not show clearly whether biodiversity and socio-economic objectives are being met. Although East African countries need to be congratulated for their vision, the results thus far indicate the urgency of both improving monitoring systems for measuring progress towards the targets, and also taking further steps to expand and improve management of existing MPAs.