Researchers now believe that the benefits of these areas extend far beyond their boundaries.<\/p>\n

How marine environments can inhibit climate change<\/h3>\n

The researchers discovered that carbon sequestration in marine protected areas increased significantly in seagrass environments, mangroves, and locations where sediment was not trawled.<\/p>\n

They explained: “Partial or full degradation of mangroves and seagrass both resulted in similar decreases of sequestered carbon, indicating that even low levels of human impact result in important carbon emissions.”<\/p>\n

Moreover, the preserved areas were also more biodiverse, had increased species richness, and also demonstrated benefits for humans. The areas had more robust food security and fish stocks in their surrounding areas of water increased as well. The team explained that mitigation and adaptation benefits in these areas were only achieved due to high levels of protection, and that benefits increase the longer the duration of the protection.<\/p>\n

The researchers concluded: “Across all four pathways analysed, only full and high levels of protection resulted in mitigation or adaptation benefits. In contrast, low levels of protection generated no benefits. Furthermore, increases in species richness and in fishers’ income only occurred for fully protected areas, where no fishing is allowed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research suggests that marine protected areas can potentially be effective at mitigating the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":26598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24433],"tags":[689],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n