Marine Charter launched at the House of Commons on Nov 19^th; over 130+ MPs have signed the charter and all the main parties agreed to include commitments to further tranches of MCZ’s in their manifestos.  http://www.wcl.org.uk/marinecharter.asp

MMO & MPAs – Managing the MPA network – Management Table

MMO ‘The MMO has published a table which shows how it is working to manage the network of marine protected areas and to encourage stakeholders to input evidence and provide feedback to help it assess and review potential risks. The table summarises information about the sites, including some of the statutory nature conservation advice about the impact of human activities upon habitat features in the sites and any MMO management actions to protect the sites and their features.

View at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/marine-protected-areas-strategic-management-table.

World’s Largest Protected Area Declared in U.S. Waters

Mission Blue      By Courtney Mattison  “The United States does not have an Amazon basin, but it has the watery equivalent, a paradise of turtles and sharks, seals and dolphins, coral reefs and giant clams, frigate birds and boobies.”[i] Last Thursday, the environmental community rejoiced as President Obama announced that the U.S. would protect this natural treasure by expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and creating the largest protected area anywhere on Earth. Building upon the 83,000 square miles of U.S. territory designated for protection by President George W. Bush in 2009, Obama’s executive action increases the reach of this cluster of remote Pacific reserves southwest of Hawaii to 491,000 square miles – three times the size of California and six times larger than the monument’s previous size.

Marine monuments are like national parks in the ocean – wilderness areas that are heavily protected from use by humans. Now, with the expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (or PRIMNM,) a total of 2.8 percent of our global ocean lies within areas officially designated for protection and close to 1 percent of Earth’s oceans are considered “highly protected,” with bans on all commercial fishing and other exploitative practices.[ii] That may not sound like much, but it’s a big improvement. The expanded monument includes all of the U.S. exclusive economic zone areas extending 200 miles from the coastlines of Wake, Johnston, and Jarvis Islands as well as smaller areas surrounding Palmyra, Baker and Howland Islands and Kingman Reef. Exclusive economic zones (EEZs) limit how far into the high seas one nation can legally control activities surrounding land within its jurisdiction.

http://mission-blue.org/2014/09/worlds-largest-protected-area-declared-in-u-s-waters/