By Pete Spotts, Staff writer / October 25, 2012. http://www.csmonitor.com/
Efforts to set aside conservation zones in the world’s oceans are picking up steam, putting countries on a path to reach an international goal of setting aside 10 percent of coastal and marine waters as marine-protected areas by 2020.
That’s the assessment of a report prepared by the Nature Conservancy and unveiled this month at a UN biodiversity conference in Hyderabad, India.
Marine-protected areas, or MPAs, generally are designed as free-swim zones for a wide range of ocean life, giving them havens to reproduce and grow without pressure from fishing or other ecologically disruptive human activities.