ORCID
- Fabio Favoretto: 0000-0002-6493-4254
Abstract
Summary.Highly and fully protected marine protected areas (HF-MPAs) deliver the strongest ecological outcomes, yet they cover just 3.8% of the ocean, and annual gains have stalled. We combine ProtectedSeas regulatory classifications with coastal habitat maps for corals, mangroves, seagrasses, and saltmarshes to track HF-MPAs and minimally/lightly protected MPAs (ML-MPAs) from 2000 to 2025 and overlay results with governance-based enabling conditions. HF-MPAs remain rare even in high-capacity countries that host most mapped coastal habitats and 39% of the global upgrade gap. Upgrading ML-MPAs in this small cohort—especially in overseas territories—offers immediate habitat protection gains and a visible pathway toward 30 × 30, while parallel efforts expand high-quality protection in open-ocean and deep-sea ecosystems and build enabling conditions elsewhere.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2026-03-20
Publication Title
iScience
Volume
29
Issue
3
Acceptance Date
2026-02-12
Deposit Date
2026-03-09
Funding
We thank the reviewers comments that greatly improved this article. F.F. wishes to thank the Gulf of California Marine Program for the support.
Additional Links
Keywords
Earth sciences, Environmental science, Oceanography
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Favoretto, F., Kumagai, J., López-Sagástegui, C., Brannigan, D., Driedger, A., Sletten, J., Colegrove, C., Vincent, T., Zetterlind, V., Guidetti, P., & Aburto-Oropeza, O. (2026) 'High-capacity nations can unlock momentum for quality marine protection', iScience, 29(3). Available at: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115043
