Project:        Marine Managed Area Science
Partners:     Charles Darwin Foundation; Galapagos Governing Council,
                        Institute for (INOCAR)
Status:          Seeking Funding

This Throat-spotted Blenny is one of hundreds of species in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. (George Cathcart)

The Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR), created in 1998, covers 133,000km², making it one of the largest marine protected areas in the world. Situated in the confluence of major ocean currents — the cool Humboldt Current from the south, the warm Panama Current from the north and the cold upwelling Cromwell Current, which surfaces to the west of the Archipelago — it is the home to a large number of endemic marine species (approx. 22% across all taxa).

The marine reserve is at a crossroads in its management strategy, and the work ahead requires a wealth of well-balanced data and information regarding threat analysis, sub-tidal and near- coastal biodiversity, population viability, functional diversity, and ecosystem resilience before climate and human disturbances.

Scientists in Galapagos began implementing a long term Galapagos Marine Reserve monitoring plan in 2004, which has since formed part of local and Eastern Tropical Pacific-wide analyses of Marine Managed Area effectiveness. This project intends to further the design of an integrated Galapagos Ocean Observing System, and to develop simple and compound species-level, community, environmental, and ecosystem process indicators that describe the effectiveness of management measures in areas such as fisheries and nature based tourism.

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