How we can protect our oceans

NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, Our Deepwater Backyard: Exploring Atlantic Canyons and Seamounts 2014.
What lies beneath the deep, dark expanse of the ocean is something that has fascinated sailors, fishermen, adventurers, poets and explorers for centuries.
How could residents of New England, for instance, have known that beneath the coastal waters lies a chain of extinct undersea volcanoes and canyons as deep as the Grand Canyon and mountains as high as any found east of the Rockies, harboring rare and endangered whales, sea turtles and fishes and coral as old as the Redwoods?

We have glimpsed this and other worlds beneath the waves thanks to advances in science and technology.
Ocean-going ships and submarines provide a window into the deep. In shallower and warmer seas, scuba-diving scientists have documented a similarly breathtaking, but previously unappreciated, diversity of life. We’ve discovered an unimaginable underwater world. Strange life forms. Unique species. Mysteries waiting to be solved.

But technology also allows us to access, disturb and eliminate these special places, putting them, and often ourselves, at risk. A single pass of a fishing trawler or mining gear can destroy centuries-old species and habitats, including nursery grounds for important fisheries.

Fortunately, governments are increasing the number of marine protected areas, or MPAs, in the ocean. Areas categorized as MPAs mean that something inside is protected, although often not much. However, two MPA subcategories are essential to achieving the goals of protecting ocean ecosystems, improving resilience in the face of multiple environmental changes and providing benefits for both nature and people.

“Fully protected areas” mean no extractive activities are allowed, while “strongly protected areas” mean no commercial and only minimal recreational extractive activities are allowed. The vast majority of MPAs do not fall into either of these two categories and are called “partially protected.” In addition to area-based protection, we also need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, and to sustainably manage fisheries.

As ocean scientists, we are encouraged that multiple governments are now taking action to protect special places in the ocean, but we believe science-driven action for ocean conservation must be greatly accelerated.
Global trend in MPAs

President Obama has taken a leadership role in ocean protection by increasing more than four-fold the amount of “strongly protected” ocean area under U.S. jurisdiction (from 5 percent to over 23 percent). He did this through the creation or expansion of three marine monuments, including the only marine monument in the U.S. Atlantic – the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, created in September 2016. Nearly the size of Connecticut, this new designation encompasses many of the unique canyons, seamounts and species in the deep New England waters.

An iceberg seen from NASA's P-3 research aircraft during a Nov. 21, 2013, survey of sea ice in the Ross Sea.

A few weeks earlier, the president created the largest strongly protected area on the planet – on land or at sea – by expanding Papahānamokuākea Marine National Monument to 1.5 million square kilometers (580,000 square miles) – twice the size of Texas. The U.S. now far exceeds any other nation in the total area of the ocean it strongly protects.