Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate

The ocean contains unique biodiversity, provides valuable food resources,
and is a major sink for anthropogenic carbon. Marine protected areas
(MPAs) are an effective tool for restoring ocean biodiversity and
ecosystem services but at present only 2.7% of the ocean is
highly protected. This low level of ocean protection is due largely to
conflicts with fisheries and other extractive uses. To address this issue,
here we developed a conservation planning framework to prioritize highly
protected MPAs in places that would result in multiple benefits today and
in the future. We find that a substantial increase in ocean protection
could have triple benefits, by protecting biodiversity, boosting the yield
of fisheries, and securing marine carbon stocks that are at risk from
human activities. Our results show that most coastal nations contain
priority areas that can contribute substantially to achieving these three
objectives of biodiversity protection, food provision, and carbon storage.
A globally coordinated effort could be nearly twice as efficient as
uncoordinated, national-level conservation planning. Our flexible
prioritization framework could help to inform both national marine spatial
plans and global targets for marine conservation, food security,
and climate action.