Establishing marine protected areas in Sweden: Internal resistance versus global influence

In the past decade, marine protected areas (MPAs) have become an increasingly used tool for science-based conservation and adaptive management of marine biodiversity and related natural resources. In this review paper, we report on rather complete time-course series (55 years uninterrupted) focusing on comparison of the strong difference, in number and area, in establishing marine (56 MNRs) and terrestrial (4284 TNRs) nature reserves in Sweden versus marine (7001 MPAs) and terrestrial (132742 TPAs) protected areas globally. Sweden appears to follow the overall global time trends. The large backlog of MPAs in relation to TPAs is due to several possible reasons, such as (i) unclear marine jurisdiction, (ii) marine conservation policies and programs developed later than terrestrial, (iii) higher costs for marine conservation management, (iv) conflicts in marine conservation, especially the fishery, and (v) the general public's historically weak awareness of the status of the marine environment. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-017-0932-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.


Marine and Terrestrial Protected Areas in the neighboring countries of Sweden
The large difference in number between reported marine and terrestrial protected areas (MPAs and TPAs of all categories) applies to most countries, including the neighboring countries of Sweden.

MPAs and TPAs by CBD region
In 2010, out of 190 nations and territories, only 12 with marine jurisdictions had MPA coverage of 10% or more, which is the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) target for 2020 (Torepova et al. 2010). Also, the MPA coverage is rather patchy (Fig. S1), with some areas that are already far ahead of the 2020 target of 10% ocean protection, whereas others are far behind.

Fact Box
MPAs related to HELCOM, OSPAR and the EU

Percentage of MPAs and TPAs by CBD region in 2014
10 Appendix S2

Prerequisite of jurisdiction and legislation -the UN Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
According to UNCLOS, sometimes referred to as the Constitution of the Sea, each coastal state has sovereignty over its territorial sea (12 Nm from the baseline) (Fig. S2). The outer control area of the coastal state is basically its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and its Continental Shelf. Outside the EEZ follows The Area (the seabed) and the High Seas (the water column above the seabed). The rules of the seabed are not always the same as applies to the water column above. The coastal state does not have sovereignty over its EEZ and Continental Shelf, but it has important rights and responsibilities. The right to control is very strong, especially with regard to the use of resources, environmental protection, including marine wildlife conservation, and marine scientific research (Schiffman 2008    Sweden, and the United Nations Environment Programme/Regional Seas Programme began to address issues of biodiversity and marine protected areas. Since then, the European commissions have together with the EU and its Birds and Habitats directives, also adopted in 1992 (92/43/EEG), but with some delay on marine application. It jointly stimulated and put pressure on their Contracting Parties and member countries to act on marine nature conservation. Furthermore, the use of principles and instruments for marine governance and management, for example, marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management emerged.
In 1995 in Jakarta, at its second Conference of the Parties (COP/CBD) the ministerial statement involved the Jakarta Mandate on conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal biological diversity. The multi-year work programme of the mandate, including the establishment of marine and coastal protected areas, was adopted by COP/CBD in 1998.
These meetings and other related conferences and meetings in the 1990s and 2000s contributed to raise the importance of marine conservation and sustainable use of marine and coastal biological diversity (Nordic Council of Ministers 1995;1996;SEPA 1997).
Apparently, this has stimulated the efforts to designate and establish MNRs in Sweden and MPAs globally, from the 1990s up to present, as reflected both in number (Figs. 3a and 5a in the main paper) and extension of MNRs and MPAs (Figs. 3b and 5b in the main paper).
In our study, we have found that these new commitments have raised the importance of marine nature conservation and influenced the willingness to designate and protect sensitive marine environments (Appendix S1, Fact Box), for example: • The Swedish commitments to the CBD with the 1995 Jakarta mandate (CBD 2000) on the global consensus on the importance of coastal and marine biological diversity; •