The Marine Protected Areas Inventory

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The Marine Protected Areas Inventory (MPA Inventory) is now online and available for you to explore. The MPA Inventory is based on the previously developed Marine Managed Areas (MMA) Inventory, which was active from 2001-2007. MMAs are a more inclusive category of place-based management than MPAs. Now, the draft definition of "MPA" used in the Revised Draft Framework is being used as the criteria for inclusion in the MPA Inventory. The MPA Inventory will be updated as necessary when the Framework becomes final in Summer 2008. It will be a key information resource for nominating eligible sites to the national system.

 

The MPA Inventory contains information on nearly 1,800 sites and is the only such dataset in the nation. This unique, comprehensive inventory provides governments and stakeholders with access to information to make better decisions about the current and future use of place-based conservation.

 

Information in the Inventory is current as of December 2007. Data were collected from most federal, state, and territorial agencies and programs. For states that chose not to participate in the inventory, the MPA Center collected the best publicly available information. All information has been quality checked by the MPA Center to ensure consistent application of definitions. The MPA Center will update the inventory annually, and welcomes corrections or additional information. For questions or comments about the MPA Inventory, please write mpainventory@noaa.gov.

 

http://mpa.gov/helpful_resources/inventory.html