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Area based conservation tools have mixed effects across all SDGs but research may overstate effects

G. Singh,Caitie Frenkel,Helen Pheasey,Jacob W Bentley,Rachel Seary,A. Cisneros‐Montemayor,Ana K. Spalding,Ridhee Gupta,Yoshitaka Ota

Published 2026 in Communications Earth & Environment

ABSTRACT

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are important tools in marine conservation. However, MPAs have unforeseen consequences, including complex adverse outcomes for human coastal communities through impacts such as dispossession of people to resource access. Here we searched the literature for evidence of MPA effects across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), collected information on these effects and the forms of evidence used to document these effects. Our analysis indicated that MPAs can have both positive and negative effects across each of the 17 SDGs, and that many papers rely on secondary data over primary data to assess those effects. For SDGs 1 (End Poverty), 2 (No Hunger), and 5 (Gender Equality) we found that papers highlighting benefits of MPAs were usually more reliant on secondary information than papers emphasizing adverse impacts. Given the importance of local contexts, MPAs are better used as precision interventions rather than broad policy tools for achieving large-scale marine sustainability. Marine protected areas have both positive and negative effects across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals and are more effective as targeted interventions rather than broad policy for sustainability, based on an analysis of existing literature.

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