Europe sets up marine protected areas,but they're too small

It's been shown pretty conclusively that marine protected areas -- areas where there is no commercial fishing activity, and better yet, if possible, no poaching -- can fairly rapidly foster the recovery of a lot of marine species that are otherwise having depletion problems. While it's not true of everything that calls the marine realm an abode, most marine species (especially the non-mammalian kinds) are fecund; give them a chance to mix milt and eggs, and you get lots of little ones, and fairly soon, the area will be fairly floppin' with flounder (or whatever else happily spawned in the protected zone).

So it's a great stride forward -- or so it wouldeth appear -- when the European Union declared lots of areas under its general jurisdiction MPAs -- Marine Protected Areas.

Europe seeks to protect mid-Atlantic high seas



But here's the problem; while the areas are good, they aren't big enough, according to Oceana:

The EU, Norway and Iceland once again postpone protection for the North-East Atlantic:
The commitment to create Marine Protected Areas has been postponed until 2012

The agreement reached during the summit postpones the creation of a network of MPAs until 2012, despite the commitments requiring the network’s completion by 2010. Oceana believes that 2012 should mark the starting point of the next step in conserving the Atlantic: protecting 30% of the marine environment and developing management measures that foster the survival of all ecosystems in the North Atlantic.

The OSPAR Convention did see to the approval of six new MPAs, including the seamounts of Milne, Altair, Antialtair and Josephine, and two areas in the Atlantic ridge. These new additions bring the current number of MPAs to 165, making up less than 3% of the marine surface area of the North-East Atlantic OSPAR region, and significantly less than the 10% minimum required by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The least protected areas are in Belgian waters, the high seas and the area from the Bay of Biscay to the Straits of Gibraltar, where less than 1% is protected.