Adopting and adapting MPA management effectiveness 'evaluation systems' - a case study of ‘il-Baħar tat-Tramuntana’ MPA in Malta

Abstract

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are considered as essential to safeguard the world’s oceans. Their designation is not enough. MPAs must be managed in an effective manner to provide a balance between the drastic need to address the conservation of natural resources and the sustainable provision of marine ecosystem services. This dissertation assesses the importance of evaluating management effectiveness, as an essential tool to transform protected areas, including MPAs, into spaces where management practices are reviewed and adapted to meet conservation goals and the sustainability of anthropogenic activities, taking into consideration emerging pressures and threats, which evolve over time.

The student researcher examined literature relating to current evaluation frameworks for management effectiveness as well as a number of case studies to identify indicators, approaches and methodologies that could be used to propose an evaluation framework for management effectiveness for the MPA, il- Baħar tat- Tramuntana (BtT). This MPA is found off the NorthWestern coast of Gozo and like all the other MPAs designated by Malta, its management plans are still works in progress.

The student researcher carried out a number of semi structured interviews with the BtT’s major stakeholders, which like the literature, revealed the need to integrate certain effectiveness evaluation criteria as part of the BtT’s management plans to achieve the MPA’s goals for conservation and sustainable practice. These criteria include integrating socio-economic and ecological aspects into management, establishing clear and specific goals and objectives and ensuring adaptive management. The information that was gathered from these interviews was applied in a general framework was proposed for BtT in the dissertation, can be adapted and applied to other MPAs across the entire archipelago. From this framework, one can identify that the main aspects that the participants believed to be important to include an evaluation, relatively similar to other frameworks found in literature.

One hopes that once the management plans for BtT and the other MPAs in Malta's waters become operational, an evaluation framework to analyse management effectiveness is not disregarded or considered as an afterthought, but becomes an integral part of the entire management process to ensure adaptive management.