Managing Large Scale Marine Reserves: Policy Recommendations for the Global Legacy Ocean Campaign

Abstract

Over the course of just a few generations, man has gained for the first time the ability to change the oceans – harnessing technologies that allow intensive marine extraction and dramatically increasing anthropogenic activities, which are today altering the sea’s chemistry, temperature, and even depth. At the same time, science is daily uncovering interconnections of increasing complexity between the health of the oceans and the health of life on land, from near-shore ecosystems and indigenous peoples, to inland crops and forests waiting for rain.