The world’s first global map of marine life regulations and their boundaries has just been released – and it could play an important role in reaching the goal of protecting 30% of our oceans by 2030.
Navigator is a free, digital, and interactive map of regulatory information of over 21,000 managed saltwater and coast areas worldwide, including the high seas. This tool, published by ProtectedSeas, is a game changer when it comes to understanding and creating marine life protection.
Before Navigator, it was difficult and time consuming to try to understand the rules that protect marine life. People had to spend months doing legal research and making maps. It was even harder because different rules applied to different places. This made it tricky to figure out how well the ocean spaces were being protected, which in turn, made it difficult to make additional protections for the ocean.
In this article, we will explain the importance of Navigator and what it means for international conservation efforts.
https://youtu.be/K3y8RfFKbZQ
The Most Comprehensive Marine Life Protection Map ever Created
Navigator was created to answer the question of where and how marine life is protected. Some areas of the ocean had marine life protections, but understanding where these boundaries began and ended wasn’t easy for policymakers, scientists, and environmental conservationists to recognize or utilize. The gap in knowing where marine life boundaries begin and end threatened the strengthening of existing regulations and the implementation of new ones.
To close the gap in marine life protection regulation accessibility and knowledge, the ProtectedSeas team went to work compiling all the existing information regarding marine information and digitizing it. As you might expect, it wasn’t a straightforward process for ProtectedSeas to compile all the data on marine regulations, and the organization had its own fair share of unexpected complexities to overcome. Virgil Zetterlind, Director of ProtectedSeas, said in a recent webinar, “Some regulations were found on pictures of signs, like one we found in the Philippines. In Sweden, some of their original marine management plans were in type-written documents that were scanned as images that included hand-drawn maps and handwritten notes, and these were not in English. So, we had to hire contractors fluent in Swedish to help make sense of these marine regulations.” 
Virgil Zetterlind, Director of ProtectedSeas
“Many areas we had to map were tough—from digitizing complex boundaries that followed coastlines and excluded islands to following connect-the-dots style descriptions to understand the regulations and boundaries,” said Zetterlind.
The completion of Navigator took eight years of research, data collection, and summarization of legal documents. However, all the data collection and hard work by ProtectedSeas to create Navigator was worth it.
The completion of Navigator is special because it is so comprehensive and dynamic in understanding where marine protection regulations exist and what areas are yet to be protected. On Navigator, you can view over 21,000 verified marine protected areas in over 220 countries, and Navigator can be utilized in over 25 languages. Additionally, on Navigator, each area is assigned a Level of Fishing Protection (LFP) score so you can understand what type of marine life regulations exist in that area. Each area’s LFP score is coded on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the least restrictive and 5 being the highest. You can also look at and save detailed country reports about marine protected areas in Navigator. These reports show information about area-specific laws that protect different species and habitats. By studying these reports, you can find areas where there might not be enough protection and use that information to create new rules to keep them safe.
Each area on Navigator is assigned a LFP score on a 1-5 scale. When area statistics are reported, the highest LFP score among overlapping areas is used unless otherwise noted.
Achieving International Conservation through leveraging Marine Protection
At the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference, also known as COP15, a deal was reached to target the protection of 30% of the planet’s lands, oceans, coastal areas, and inland waters by 2030. This ambitious and landmark decision will have a profound positive influence on the environment since oceans offer benefits such as food, climate regulation, the economy, recreation, and much more. To reach the goal of protecting 30% of the Earth’s oceans, there is a lot of work to be done. ProtectedSeas’ Navigator LFP scoring system data shows that only 3.4% of the global ocean is highly protected from fishing. Fortunately, Navigator provides scientists, policymakers, and conservationists with precise global data on marine regulations. This information can empower them to make better-informed decisions on how to reach 30% protection of nature by 2030.
The effects of this newfound access to information on marine protected areas can help maintain healthy oceans by protecting biodiversity and allowing marine life to thrive. These protected zones provide benefits like increased fish populations that support coastal fishing economies, intact reef structures that protect shorelines from storms, and preservation of underwater ecosystems.
Interested in exploring Navigator? Click here to start. 
Jennifer Sletten, Lead Attorney for ProtectedSeas, explains how Navigator works in their global launch webinar. You can watch the webinar below to understand how it functions.
Fun Facts from the Navigator —
- The smallest marine protected area in the world is in the Philippines at the Batalang Bato Marine Sanctuary, with 0.03 square kilometers (0.02 square miles) – where the only known regulatory information was posted on a sign at the site!
- On the country level, Palau has the highest percentage of marine area that is protected against fishing (79%).
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This is a tool of the future for all conservationists
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That's pretty cool! I completely missed out on this piece of news. Do you know who will mostly be using this map? Fishing companies?
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@sarah_chabane Thanks for this question Sarah. ProtectedSeas anticipates that various audiences, such as: MPA practitioners, policy makers, elected officials, conservation organizations, those in academia & research, national & international governments, fishers, marine charting companies, boaters, and others may find the Navigator database useful for decision making.
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The navigator makes marine life so simple.
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this might be an effective tool
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Wow! Sounds like an incredible tool.
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What an amazing tool for environmental conservationists!