Marine protected areas of South Africa

The marine protected areas of South Africa are in an area of coastline or ocean within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Republic of South Africa that is protected in terms of specific legislation for the benefit of the environment and the people who live in and use it. An MPA is a place where marine life can thrive under less pressure than unprotected areas. They are like underwater parks, and this healthy environment can benefit neighbouring areas.
There are a total of 42 marine protected areas in the South African EEZ, after consolidation, with a total area of 15.5% of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The target was to have 10% of the oceanic waters protected by 2020. All but one of the MPAs are in the exclusive economic zone off continental South Africa, and one is off the Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean. Without the large Prince Edward Islands MPA, South Africa has 41 MPAs covering 5.4% of its continental EEZ. This achieves United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14.5 for conservation of marine and coastal areas, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 Aichi Target 11.
People can take part in a wide range of non-consumptive activities in all of South Africa's MPAs, and some parts of some MPAs are zoned for limited consumptive activities. Some of these activities require a permit, which is a form of taxation.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines a marine protected area as:
A marine protected area (MPA) is a protected area of sea or estuary. These areas can range from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life. In some situations (such as with the Phoenix Islands Protected Area), MPAs also provide revenue for countries, potentially equal to the income that they would have if they were to grant companies permissions to fish.
As of August 2016 there are more than 13,650 MPAs, encompassing 2.07% of the world's oceans, with half of that area – encompassing 1.03% of the world's oceans – receiving complete "no-take" designation.
If there is no defined long-term goal for conservation and ecological recovery and extraction of marine resources occurs, the IUCN does not recognise a region as a marine protected area. The purposes stated for declaring South African marine protected areas include:
MPAs have been shown to protect biodiversity and stocks of economically important marine organisms, and are also considered to protect cultural heritage, provide educational and recreational opportunities, provide sustainable employment, and stimulate tourism, and may assist with resilience to climate change.
Planning scenarios for site selection analysis include seabed protection, pelagic biodiversity, threatened species, sustainability of small pelagic and demersal trawl fisheries, inshore, offshore and crustacean trawl bycatch management, a range of sector-specific analyses exploring areas where spawning or nursery grounds can be protected, as well as integrated analysis of all targets for all objectives including minimising and spreading impact on industry. Scenarios also considered industry targets and spreading the impact fairly, and the impact on rights holders who operate in fixed areas such as diamond mining and petroleum extraction.
In recent planning, areas were considered in combination, with a recommendation to implement several new MPAs as a set, as this would speed up the process and allow a spatially efficient network that meets multiple combined objectives and minimises cumulative impact on industry. This plan was followed with the 2019 set of mostly offshore MPAs.
South Africa's first MPA was the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area, which was declared in 1964. Several early MPAs were declared in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, 18 of 1998, and they are currently declared through the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act 2003
The South African Association for Marine Biological Research (SAAMBR) was established by marine scientists who in 1947 recognised the unique character of the northern Zululand coast, which was later described as the Delagoa inshore ecoregion. The Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI) recognised that protection was necessary for effective conservation and in collaboration with the Natal Parks Board (now Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife), established the St. Lucia Marine Reserve which was proclaimed in 1979, followed by the proclamation of the Maputaland Marine Reserve in 1986. These are now consolidated in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, which was proclaimed as South Africa's first World Heritage Site in 1999. After nearly 20 years of work the Aliwal Shoal Marine Protected Area was proclaimed in 2004, along with the Pondoland Marine Protected Area, at the time the largest of South Africa's MPAs, and several others. By 2018, South Africa had 25 formally declared Marine Protected Areas, of which 24 are in the coastal waters of the continental territory, and one is in the waters of the Prince Edward Islands in the Southern Ocean.
Conservation authorities took into account the lack of protection for offshore benthic and pelagic habitats, and the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) developed the National Protection Area Expansion Strategy (NPAES) which was approved for implementation in March 2009. Subsequently, ten focus areas were identified for offshore biodiversity protection, and on 24 October 2018, 20 of the proposed 22 new MPAs were approved by Cabinet, and were proclaimed by the South African government on 24 May 2019, along with regulations for their management, in Government Gazettes Nos. 42478 and 42479 of 2019. Most of the new areas were slightly reduced from the recommended areas. The area proclaimed was 54214 km, while the proposed area was 68578 km. In some cases new areas were combined with existing MPAs, and the total number rose to 42.
Operation Phakisa is a South African government initiative intended to accelerate the implementation of solutions on critical development issues identified in the National Development Plan (NDP) 2030. Phakisa means "hurry up" in Sesotho and is intended to indicate urgency. The intention is to produce clear targets and plans and involves collaboration between key stakeholders in public and private sectors, academics and civil society organisations. The purposes stated for the new MPAs include facilitation of sustainable fisheries and use by other economic sectors, as well as the protection of offshore species and ecosystems. The 2008 NPAES was revised in 2016 and prioritised conservation of the areas gazetted following the Phakisa process.
The Marine Protection Services and Ocean Governance focus area is tasked with the development of an integrated governance framework for the exclusive economic zone to allow sustainable growth of the ocean economy.
The EEZ of South Africa has a total area of approximately 1,547,576 km.
The coastal MPAs before 2018 constituted 0.43% of the continental EEZ, and 0.16% of the EEZ was no-take zones. Offshore ecosystems were the least protected ecosystems of territory under South African management. The 20 new MPAs proclaimed by the South African government on 24 May 2019 increased the area of the continental protected areas to about 5.4%. To comply with the goals of the United Nations, another 5% of South African oceanic waters must be protected by 2020. With the inclusion of the large Southern Ocean Prince Edward Islands Marine Protected Area the total marine area protected is 15.5%, or
Coastal MPAs in the continental EEZ range in size from the Rocherpan Marine Protected Area on the Western Cape coast with 3 km of shoreline and extending 500 m seawards, to the iSimangaliso MPA in northern KwaZulu-Natal with 177 km of coastline some of which extends up to 107 km seawards. The offshore MPAs also vary considerably in size: Benguela Muds MPA is only 95 km, while the two seamount MPAs are both more than 7500 km.
The coastal MPAs protect about 34% of the continental shoreline, of which about 12% is classified as restricted zone, based on a coastline length of 3113 km (the coastline length was previously estimated at 3656 km). 5.4 percent of the continental EEZ is protected, of which about 3% is restricted zone. The Prince Edward Islands MPA is the largest, with 181247 km which is 38.17 percent of the archipelago's EEZ.
Coastal MPAs are distributed along the coastline from the Namaqua National Park Marine Protected Area on the west coast, to the iSimangaliso MPA on the east coast, which extends up to the South African – Mozambique border. The continental offshore MPAs are distributed through the EEZ from the border of Namibia to near Durban, on the east coast, to provide best coverage of the variety of habitats and ecosystems. Protea Banks MPA is closest to the mainland shore with depths starting at about 30 m, while parts of the Agulhas Front MPA and Southwest Indian Ocean and Atlantic Seamount MPAs are near the outer edge of the EEZ, and include abyssal benthic habitats more than 4000 m deep.
The MPAs provide habitat protection for beaches, rocky shores, coastal and open ocean islands, lagoons, pans, estuaries and offshore shoals.
The earliest proclamations of marine protected areas in South Africa were under the Sea Fisheries Acts of 1973 and 1988 and amendments. From 1998 they were declared under Section 43 of the Marine Living Resources Act, after which the management of fisheries was separated from MPAs, which were thereafter grouped with terrestrial conservation areas under the National Environmental Management Act: Protected Areas Act, No. 10 of 2004, by the 2014 amendment, and all pre-existing MPAs were transferred by presidential pronouncement to section 22A of the NEM: PAA, published on 2 June 2014 in Government Gazette No. 37710.
The South African Constitution makes the national government responsible for protecting the environment. Originally the management of MPAs and fisheries was the responsibility of the Marine and Coastal Management branch of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), but the department was split in 2009 into the Department of Environmental Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Department of Tourism, and management of the marine environment was shared by the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. This continued until 2019 when another reshuffle of portfolios created the Department of Environment Forestry and Fisheries, which was allocated the responsibility for MPAs.
The Department of Environmental Affairs has management agreements with a variety of MPA management authorities, such as CapeNature, City of Cape Town (CoCT), Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA), Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM), South African National Parks (SANParks), Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, and iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority (IWPA) .
South African coastal MPA's are usually attached to a terrestrial national park or nature reserve, and the management of that park or reserve also manages the MPA, funded by the national government via the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), now the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries.
Management strategies for the MPAs include sanctuary, restricted, wilderness and controlled zones, completely no-take MPAs, Ramsar sites, a World Heritage Site, two UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, and the Walker Bay Whale Sanctuary, which is seasonal, effectively an MPA only between 1 July and 30 November of each year.
Zonation of marine protected areas in South Africa is classified by the Marine Living Resources Act and the National Environmental Management Act. An MPA may be divided into one or more types of zonation. Restricted and controlled areas are common.
The listed MPAs were individually proclaimed. Some were later consolidated with adjacent MPAs and may not still be generally referred to by the original name.
The 2019 proclamation of 20 new marine protected areas extended protection for the first time to 51 previously unprotected ecosystem types. This reduced the number of unprotected ecosystem types from 47% to 13%. The quality of protection is variable. Insufficient area of some ecosystems is protected. In other cases legal and illegal fishing, waste water discharge and other pressures degrade the protection. Improvements in governance are urgently needed, including developing and implementing management plans, better financing, and improving liaison end compliance.