Progress, opportunities and challenges for marine conservation in the Pacific Islands

The people of the Pacific have long relied on the ocean for sustenance, commerce and cultural identity, which resulted in a sophisticated understanding of the marine environment and its conservation. The global declines in ocean health require new and innovative approaches to conserving marine ecosystems. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been shown to be a highly effective means of conserving biodiversity and managing fisheries, while also restoring and preserving overall ecosystem function. Traditional ecological knowledge held by many island peoples in the Pacific is critical to the development, design and implementation of contemporary MPAs. Chile's offshore islands are among the few oceanic archipelagos along the west coast of South America. These islands have cultural and ecological connections to the broader insular Pacific, yet our scientific understanding of them is extremely limited. Chile has created several large-scale MPAs around their offshore archipelagos. By protecting these unique ecosystems, Chile has established itself as a global leader in marine conservation. Effective management and a better understanding of social-ecological interactions are currently the biggest challenges facing MPAs in the Pacific Islands.