Why Nobody Can Name a Marine Protected Area

0:00 A few years ago, an aquarium in South Africa asked its visitors a pretty simple question: Can you name one marine protected area? And these were people who had spent their day off looking at fish, as you do in an aquarium. And a lot of them came up blank. They just couldn't name that MPA. But some of them named the aquarium. And that blank space is one of the biggest threats that MPAs face. And we're gonna talk about why that is on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. And I wanna ask you a question. Name one marine protected area in your country. Go. Go ahead. I'll wait Nothing? That's okay. You're in good company. Most people can't name a single MPA. And a place that nobody can name is a place that nobody notices when these MPAs get weakened, shrunk, or even quietly opened back up.

0:44 And by the end of this episode, you'll be able to name at least one, and you'll know why that matters to you personally, and you'll have a five-minute task that changes how you look at your own coastline. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, marine biologist and science communicator, here to talk about all ocean news, ocean science, and ocean conservation. And this week, we're gonna be talking about how we communicate the ocean, and why some of the most important tools in conservation are the ones people know the least about. So let's start with why you can't name an MPA, because it's not your fault. On land, protected areas have gates. You can go visit them. They have signs, parking lots, gift shops, postcards.

1:26 You can picture, like, Banff or Yellowstone or Kruger National Park because you've seen photos of them and you know of them, you've known about them your whole life. And you know there's a line, like, an actual boundary, 'cause you know you've actually crossed it or not, you have this physical picture in your mind. Now, in the ocean, there's no gate. The boundary's a set of coordinates, so It's just an imaginary line. And you can float right over on a paddleboard and never know that you're in it. And when conservation people talk about them, like myself, we use words like representative network and biodiversity connectivity. These are all the different terms and they're accurate, but they also make people's eyes just kinda glaze over, 'cause it's a lot of jargon for them.

2:09 And it's all jargon for you, I imagine. I can't even imagine that, Like, now compare that to an orca or a humpback or a great white, and then you can put a face on those 'cause you know what they are. But an MPA is harder. A marine protected area is harder. It's a place, And we've done a bad job introducing people to that place. And I'll own that. As a marine biologist, like, I get it. I've spent more than 15 years communicating ocean science, and I had to stop and think when I asked myself to name MPAs in my own country. So, like, the thing is, is like how deep does all this go? Like, the best example I found comes from an aquarium in South Africa, And it surprised even the people who work there Now picture a public aquarium on the coast of Durban, South Africa. Sharks circling in huge tanks.

2:49 We get rays gliding past the glass, kids pressing their faces against it, and just loving what they're seeing. And the team there wanted to know one thing. Their visitors clearly like the ocean. They always saw the sharks, and they saw the fish and everything. They paid money and given up their day to come see all the different exhibits. But how much of these visitors know about the places that protect the ocean, like the marine protected areas? So they started asking people, "What do you think about marine protected areas? Do you support them?" And then the simplest question of all, "Can you name one?" And most people couldn't do it, and some people who did give an answer like an aquarium. That's the protected area. That's what they think are protected.

3:30 Now think about that for a second, They thought the aquarium was the marine protected area. And that's not like to say that they don't know what they're talking about or they're not smart or anything like that. This is just what people think. And it's good thing to know. And honestly, like when you think about it, it makes sense. For a lot of visitors, the aquarium was the one place they'd ever seen ocean life being protected. You have big walls, clean water, people looking at the animals, And to be honest, that's what protection looks like to them. So I get it. And what's interesting too is, like, the same team that heard kids walk up to the main tank and ask where the switch was to change the channel, they thought it was a giant TV. Other visitors want to know how the staff had stopped the waves.

4:10 That aquarium learned something every communicator needs to hear, that people you're talking to are seeing the world through completely different glasses than you are. And if you start the, "Support our new representative MPA network," you've lost them already, even before you started. So if you came up blank with the naming of the MPA, you're standing exactly where most people stand, and this is why. So when a public doesn't know a place exists, like an MPA, like the decisions about that place happen in rooms like the public never sees. It usually happens in like workshops where you're in a hotel conference room, or you're in a room anywhere. Like you're in a government building, wherever you are. Industries that want access to the area show up to every single meeting. They know where to go. The fish, the corals, and the people who depend on them mostly don't.

4:54 they're not there for that kind of information session. So South Africa lived through this And how they got out of it is the reason I can tell you this story with a happy ending Back in 2004, South Africa ran a national check on its biodiversity. It found out that the country's offshore ecosystem were the least protected of anything that they had ever had on land or at sea. So scientists got to work. They said, "All right, we're gonna figure this out." Starting in 2006, researchers at the South African National Biodiversity Institute spent years mapping where new protected areas should go, which canyons, which reefs, which nursery grounds mattered the most. Then came the consultations, years of them. That always takes the longest, Commercial fishing, oil and gas exploration, mining, tourism, coastal communities, everyone with a stake got a seat.

5:41 And in 2014, the government finally backed the plan. in October 2018, cabinet approved a network of 20 new MPAs, and then they waited. The plan sat on a desk while the competing interests just kept talking. And at a point, South Africa protected 0.4% of the ocean around its mainland, less than half of 1%. On May 24th, 2019, the wait was over. All 20 were officially declared, and protection jumped from 0.4% to 5.4% of South Africa's ocean area. That network gives at least some protection to 90% of the country's marine habitat types. That means there are, whatever you see around the coastline, 90% of it fit within those reefs, So you have a proportion, a representation of what is on the coast of South Africa.

6:29 Now, the people who fought for those 20 places realized something during the long wait, that scientists had done the work, the consultations were done, but what was missing was the public. Hardly anyone outside the conservation world knew about these places. And which meant, like, hardly anyone was making noise for them. And this is not new. This is happening all over the world. So they decided to change that in South Africa. And what they were able to do in South Africa can actually be used other places, including where you're living. The first move was a name change, at least in spirit. South Africans grew up with game reserves, so everyone knows what a game reserve is. So communicators started calling MPAs nature reserves of the sea.

7:09 So you take something people already understand and walk them one step over to something new. The second move was even bigger. For years, MPAs have been sold on what they do for nature, biodiversity, habitats, climate resilience. All that is true. They still do that. But in a country facing serious economic challenges, nobody had clearly explained what MPAs do for the people. So more fish spilling over into fishing grounds, tourism jobs, coastlines that hold up better in storms. Once you say all that out loud to the people, the MPA becomes something that's on your side. And I think this is something we do as communicators all the time in science. We think about the science. The science is the hero. The science is not the hero.

7:50 The protection is not the hero. The people are the hero. So how are they going to connect with this MPA if it doesn't relate to them? The people are the hero. You want them to connect, you have to make it important to them. And there was one tick that worked better than almost anything else. When the aquarium built an exhibit about the new MPAs, the piece the visitors connected most was a simple map. Coastal towns with the protected areas marked was right beside them. People would walk up. So they had coastal towns with the protected areas marked right beside them. So people would walk up, find their town, and say, "Hey, that one's near me. That's kinda cool." That's the whole game. Make it near me.

8:30 Make it near the hero of the story. And that idea of Near Me grew into something much bigger than one exhibit, and it all started with a phone call to a handful of friends. We all know there's a day for everything, right? So Ocean Day, Rhino Day, Zebra Day. And somebody at the aquarium looked up at the crowded calendar and thought, "Why not have a day for marine protected areas?" So she called six to eight friends and said, "Let's do MPA Day." Every one of them asked the same thing, "What's MPA Day?" And her answer was basically, "I'm not totally sure yet. Let's figure that out together." So they pulled together, like, two digital agencies, a traditional communications company, a few conservation groups, and the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town.

9:11 They picked August 1st as the day. So the first MPA Day happened in 2021, August 1st, 2021, in the middle of the lockdown. So it was a virtual tour, not exactly a, a perfect dream launch. Then it started to spread. In 2024, Mission Blue, Sylvia Earle's organization, brought its network of hope spots on the board. And the European project called the Protect Baltic, they also joined. MPA Day went global. By 2025, more than 80 events were planned across 25 countries with 92 partners. More than 100 activities actually happened. And in 2026, it was bigger again, and it's now officially endorsed as the United Nations Ocean Decade activity. So individuals, schools, small community groups, big NGOs, MPA managers hosting celebrations inside their own protected areas, governments, even businesses, all from a day that, at the start, nobody could really explain what it was gonna be about.

10:05 Let me practice what I'm preaching and name a marine protected area for you. Off the coast of Nova Scotia, about 200 kilometers out near Sable Island, there's a place called The Gully. It's an enormous underwater canyon, one of the largest on the East Coast of North America, and Canada made it a marine protected area in 2004. And in fact, I was actually out in Nova Scotia in 2004, so it's got a little bit of a personal fix to me, and I remember when it was actually designated. It's home to northern bottlenose whales, deep-diving whales that can stay down for over an hour, plus cold water corals that can live for centuries. Notice what just happened. Like, you got a giant canyon and whales that hold their breath for over an hour, and that's how policy becomes a place you can picture.

10:47 So here's what I want you to do this week. Find the marine protected area that's closest to where you live, and learn one species that lives in it. And that's it. If you're in Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has a map of marine protected areas. In the US, NOAA keeps an MPA inventory. Now, anywhere around the world, go to protectedplanet.net and zoom in on the coastline. And if you live inland, pick the closest coast and use that one when you visit on your next vacation. Then tell me what you found. Drop it in Spotify comments or send me a DM on Instagram, LinkedIn, or wherever you hang out. I want to build a list of these places named by you. I want this to be like a fun community thing that we do as a podcast community, This is what we're all supposed to do. I start the conversation, you continue it.

11:28 So I'd love to hear what the nearest MPA is towards you. I just think a lot of times when we, learn about MPAs or we hear about MPAs, it's just a fictional thing that's happened. But it's, actual real place. Fake boundaries, like invisible boundaries, but it's a real place, and it's great that we get to know what's in there and what's being protected. Because not a lot of people will know about this, and we hear marine protected area and nobody has that connection to it. And I think it's important to know what's in there so that we can have that connection and we care more about it. When I watched that movie Ocean, that was narrated by Sir David Attenborough, it was a fantastic movie. When they showed all the productivity in the UK waters on the ground, all that purple, and there's like little anemones and everything.

12:12 It was just full of productivity, it was full of life. And that people, like, got into it. They're like, "Whoa, I never knew this happened." And then they had the trawl come through and take it all out. And you just sat there like, "Oh my Lord, how did this happen? How did we let this happen?" And there was like, it felt like a chunk was taken out of my heart, to be honest. I know that sounds dramatic, but it did. But we cared about it. It doesn't take long. That was maybe a five-minute segment to get people interested and to care about what's in the bottom of the ocean, because it's the wonder, it's the awe, it's the mystery. And then when you find it, you're like, "Whoa, this is really cool stuff." Same thing with the deep sea, same thing with every part of the ocean. There's some really cool things in there that we can really understand and fall in love with.

12:53 And until you find out what's there, you're not gonna remember the MPAs that you want to name. You're really not. And so I think it's important that we start to name them and understand what is inside. Now, that's the episode for today, but tomorrow we're gonna look at what these places actually do when things go wrong. So a reef in the middle of the Pacific bleached white for more than six months. And what came back from that surprised scientists who watched it happen. So you don't wanna miss tomorrow's episode. Hit that follow button on your favorite podcast app. And I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.