Abstract

In the last year, GCFI and NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program have assisted with the review of marine protected area (MPA) management plans in four Caribbean countries. During the management planning review process for Sandy Island/Oyster Bed Marine Protected Area and Tobago Cays Marine Park, MPA managers, staff, board members and stakeholders indicated that they would welcome updated formatting. In particular, they expressed interest in a user-friendly sectional approach, topline strategic priorities for different sections of MPA management, and summaries or highlight materials as pull-outs. GCFI and TNC worked with graphic design and GIS expertise to develop innovative outputs for the two participating MPAs. Through the outputs created in this way, we helped the MPAs to keep the strategic priorities from the revised management plans top of mind for MPA staff, boards and stakeholders. This represents significant value adding on top of the review of existing management plans, and has saved the new management plans from being relegated to a shelf in the office. We will present these new materials and explain their fit with common templates for MPA management planning and their usefulness for day-to-day MPA management.

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