Andre shared the MPAtlas website with us. It’s a map and list of marine protected areas around the world, and there’s some good general information about what constitutes an MPA, why you’d want to establish one, and what plans are in the works to protect even larger areas of ocean.
From what I could see the information on South Africa’s MPAs is a bit sparse, but most of them are marked and named on the map. Also marked are candidates for future marine protected areas – these are areas in which a wide range of unique species (not found in many other locations) can be protected. The candidate MPAs are marked with orange dots on the map. You will see how few of our existing MPAs (marked in dark blue) extend any appreciable distance offshore into our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which is marked in light blue on the map.
This is an exciting initiative. I hope that, with new MPAs being designated, that policing of these precious bits of our heritage is also extended to minimise the number of incidents like this one.
Visit the MPAtlas website here.
