Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or large lakes. These marine areas can come in many forms ranging from wildlife refuges to research facilities. MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations. Typical MPAs restrict fishing, oil and gas mining and/or tourism. Other restrictions may limit the use of ultrasonic devices like sonar (which may confuse the guidance system of cetaceans), development, construction and the like. Some fishing restrictions include "no-take" zones, which means that no fishing is allowed.
The Marine Protected Areas layer is a static data layer. MPAs are polygons, i.e., geometric shapes that you can draw in, edit or remove when making a plan.
MPAs can have no protection against fishing, thus allowing all three fishing fleets to fish there. Alternatively, MPAs can be designated to protect against any or all of the three fishing fleets (Bottom Trawl, Industrial and Pelagic Trawl, Drift and Fixed Nets). If so, the selected fishing fleets will not fish there.
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