Introduction

Abstract

Welcome to this second Special Issue focusing on building networks of marine protected areas (MPAs). In the first Special Issue we focused on new insights on MPAs stemming from the 3rd International Marine Protected Area Congress which was held in Marseille, France in 2013. This issue draws out new information, perspectives and conclusions from the 6th World Parks Congress in 2014 convened by IUCN in Sydney, Australia. The World Parks Congresses are a landmark global forum on protected areas held every 10 years. As the world's most influential gathering of people involved in protected area management, it sets the global agenda for the following decade. More than 6000 participants from more than 170 countries met at the Sydney World Parks Congress. As challenges in sustainable development and sustainable use of the earth's natural resources accelerate, the Sydney Parks Congress aimed to position parks and protected areas firmly within broader goals of economic and community well-being. The theme of the Congress was therefore ‘Parks, People, Planet: Inspiring Solutions’. In Sydney, meeting the challenges of sustainable development and contributing to community well-being were achieved by increasing understanding of the vital role of protected areas in conserving biodiversity and delivering ecosystem services. Acknowledging the traditional owners of the land, the Congress celebrated an enormous variety of inspiring ways of addressing the challenges facing the planet, through protected area approaches that respect and conserve nature, while benefiting human health and prosperity. It recognized that rebalancing the relationship between human society and nature is essential, and that ecosystems and their variety of life fully support our existence, cultural and spiritual identity, economies and well-being. This progress has contributed substantially to realizing IUCN's overall vision of a ‘just world that values and conserves nature’. The Congress took stock of not just what is challenging us, but how innovative leaders in every corner of the world are finding and implementing protected area solutions to a wide range of challenges, from climate change to economic recessions. Captured from the boldest thinking of governments, international organizations, communities, civil society leaders and indigenous peoples, the four pillars of the Promise of Sydney collectively represent the outcomes of the World Parks Congress. These pillars – a core Vision for the future we want to see, a set of Innovative Approaches to solving some of the world's most elusive challenges, Commitments to advancing this change for people, protected areas and the planet, and Solutions that provide evidence that this change is in fact within our reach – collectively represent the direction and blueprint for a decade of change that emanate from the deliberations of this World Parks Congress. Originally proposed by a youth leader in the preparations for Congress, The Promise of Sydney is a deliberate step away from the usual declaration and action plan so familiar to these events. The Promise of Sydney is at once representative of the promise we will make to our children and our belief in a promising future for all. This was the first Congress where marine and the ocean became the key take home message from the whole event. This was also the year when the total area under marine protections became greater than the area under terrestrial protection. Ocean protection is expanding at an order of magnitude faster than terrestrial protection, something that many political leaders are showing the world that they want to be part of. The Congress demonstrated through a wide array of activities and actions why the ocean is such a fundamental focus for conservation action and management in the coming decades. Once perhaps seen as the poor relative of terrestrial conservation, the Sydney Congress demonstrated the need to embrace ocean values and issues throughout the work of IUCN, its members and as a rallying call for the world. Without a healthy ocean we would have a planet similar to Mars, so investing in ocean action became a central call to emerge from the Congress. In this Special Issue we explore MPAs from a variety of perspectives – from global targets through to local actions. We hope that this publication will be of wide interest to the community as we drive forward with enlightened self-interest that now is the time to safeguard our ocean world. The next Special Issue will highlight new developments in MPAs that will come from the World Conservation Congress to be held in Hawaii, USA in September 2016 – IUCN's first ‘ocean’ Congress.