MPAs: Tool or Valuable Marketing Toy?

By Kevern Cochrane, Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science, Rhodes University, Makhanda

In 2007, I published an article “Marine Protected Areas as Management Measures: Tools or Toys?”, which reviewed the intense push by some agencies and interest groups to increase coverage of MPAs and the counter -arguments to them, largely but not only in relation to fisheries and fisheries management (Cochrane, 2007). As can be seen in the response by Doug Butterworth to the Daily Maverick article by Radia Razack of Oceans and Coasts at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), and the other articles that followed the one by Butterworth, the conflict rages on.