How do we create a MPA?

What are the reasons you care about your ocean backyard? Regardless of your motivation, there is one common theme that would inspire you to take action: you wish to revive your local piece of ocean so that increased abundance and diversity of marine life can provide increased benefits to you and others. That’s our science-based premise: the only way we can obtain more from the sea than we presently do—independently of whether you’re interested in the intrinsic or the instrumental value of marine life—will be if the sea has more biodiversity in it, at all levels. Only more biodiversity will be able to provide more benefits. Using the financial analogy again, everything else being equal, only a larger principal will give us greater returns. If we continue to withdraw from the principal, we’ll only obtain diminished returns.

If you’re inspired and motivated to act, this section gives practical guidance about how to get started creating an MPA.