Alas, those of us in Australia will have to get up very early for this, but at least you can wear your pyjamas.

When: Wednesday, March 26, 1 pm EDT / 5 pm GMT / Thurs 3 am AEST
Where: OpenChannels

In this interactive ‘Office Hour’ chat hosted by the EBM tools network, co-authors Rodolphe Devillers (Memorial University of Newfoundland) and Jack Kittinger (Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University) will take your questions on their recent article in the journal Aquatic Conservation, “Reinventing residual reserves in the sea: are we favouring ease of establishment over need for protection?”

In their analysis of MPAs worldwide, with a particular focus on Australia, Devillers and Kittinger found that new MPAs are typically biased toward places that are remote or unpromising for extractive activities (fishing and petroleum extraction). Such locations typically provide little protection to the species and ecosystems that are currently most exposed to threatening processes. As a result, the new MPAs present almost no difference to “business as usual” for current ocean uses. Their paper, which recommends steps to prevent the bias, is available in Open Access at: http://openchannels.org/literature-library/1393878373. You can read our previous commentary on the paper here.

Join the chat on 26 March at http://openchannels.org/chat/interactive-qa-global-study-finds-mpa-siting-biased.

Leave a Reply