The economics of protected areas in marine fisheries management: An overview of the issues

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are under increasing consideration as a fishery management tool but remain controversial. The design, implementation, and management of MPAs necessarily involve human behavior and institutions, but these components are often overlooked. Social and economic elements permeate all stages of MPA development and implementation: the design, site selection, implementation, monitoring, and enforcement. This paper presents an overview of seven key economic elements of MPAs: economic uncertainty, design processes, distributional effects, institutional placement, economic impacts, management costs, and enforcement costs. The paper assesses the extent to which these elements are receiving explicit consideration in current practice and the degree to which they are contributing to controversy in MPA implementation.