Fisheries and Marine Protected Areas

An important objective to be considered in designing a Marine Protected Area (MPA) is to ensure that MPAs provide sustainable benefits to the community from fishery resources. It should also be known that MPAs can provide fisheries stock to surrounding area through the spill-over of larvae. The current total area of MPAs in Indonesia covers only 3.64% of the total area of Fisheries Management Areas (FMAs), despite the former currently protecting 44% of coral reef cover located in FMAs. However, lack of data on fisheries stock and catch effort in MPAs is one of the challenges to be addressed for providing proof of MPA benefits. Nevertheless, there are examples of the benefits of developing MPAs for fisheries such as in SAP Selat Pantar and TWP Kepulauan Anambas. This chapter discusses the role of MPAs for sustainable fisheries, as well as the relationship between MPAs and FMAs, fisheries regulations in MPAs, and fisheries management by local communities.