Are marine protected areas an adaptation measure against climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems? A UK case study

Climate change is impacting marine seascapes against a backdrop of multiple anthropogenic stressors. These current impacts are projected to increase in the future with increasing warming, acidification, oxygen loss, and sea level rise. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been established to protect features in the ocean, traditionally with a focus to reduce fishing pressures and infrastructure placements. These MPAs are static in nature and are rarely considering climate change; therefore, their potential adaptation effectiveness as local adaptation measures for conservation in response to climate change are not clear. Here we discuss the challenges to Marine Protected Areas as conservation tools and for adaptation to climate change threats. We use two case studies from the UK to ask how climate change resilience could be included in MPA management to future-proof these conservation measures. We conclude that the resilience of MPAs to climate change would be better supported when adaptive management measures and an ecosystem-based approaches are adopted. We emphasise the need to increase the recognition in the primary legislation of MPAs and the monitoring of sites to better understand climate change as it becomes more pronounced, and impacts emerge.