Global marine conservation priorities for sustaining marine productivity, preserving biodiversity and addressing climate change

Marine primary productivity is a critical driver of functioning marine ecosystems, providing a foundation for biological diversity and associated economic productivity, and a key component of the oceanic carbon sink. However, it is largely under-represented within the global marine protected area estate and has been widely ignored in global priority assessments for marine conservation.

Using global high-resolution data on marine primary productivity and human cumulative impact to marine systems, more than 18.6 million km² of high productivity-low impact areas in the global ocean were identified. These areas occur across all ocean basins and represent the vast majority of marine provinces and ecoregions.

Over 80% of these highly productive waters with low levels of human impact lies within national jurisdictions and yet only 11% of the overall identified area is currently safeguarded within designated marine protected areas or sustainable management initiatives, leaving more than 16.5 million km2 of high productivity-low impact areas without those forms of formal protection.

The multifaceted contribution of these areas to preserve biodiversity, support human welfare and help mitigating climate change suggest they are an essential, but currently overlooked, conservation priority for consideration in both global nature conservation and human wellbeing policy fora.