IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

This easy to use self-assessment checklist, based on the best practice guide, is designed to enable those engaged in designing or managing MPA networks and will assist national and regional authorities to determine progress towards the establishment of effective MPA networks.

Undertaking this assessment can be useful for a number of reasons:

• It will enable you to assess progress against what is regarded as ‘best practice’, and will therefore enable you to determine what may be required to achieve a more effective and efficient MPA network;
• It can help you evaluate performance toward long-term network objectives as articulated in this report; furthermore if the assessment is conducted periodically, it will assist in assessing actual progress.
• It can be used to justify more resources to improve management effectiveness against certain principles (or the improvements required to progress towards the ‘best practice’ level)
  

It may also prove useful for:

• Reporting progress (eg. toward the WSSD 2012 goal) in a standardized way.
• Assisting in the collation of valuable information in a comprehensive and systematic way, and enables broad level comparisons between MPA networks.

How to use this checklist

To use this checklist, simply review the statements against each of the principles, and choose whichever statement is the best approximation or corresponds most closely with your current situation. The higher you score against the principle, the more effective is your current approach to achieving that principle. If you assess each statement realistically and honestly as either a 0, 1 or 2, then you will be able to determine what might be expected to progress to a higher level of management effectiveness. This will enable you to gauge your progress and the effectiveness of your approach against currently perceived ‘best practice’, and to understand where the gaps (or weaknesses) are that should be addressed as future priorities. Regular use of the checklist can then be used to track progress towards the overall end goal of an effectively established and lasting MPA network.

The checklist has been ordered so some of the ‘easier’ principles that are simpler to assess are listed first; those listed towards the end of the checklist are more nebulous and hence may be harder to assess, but are nevertheless important to address in implementing effective MPA networks.

If you want to determine an overall score for your MPA network, mark the corresponding score for each principle/criteria in the column marked ‘Your score’ and then add the total of all scores. Calculation of a final score can assist in an overall rating between MPA networks but also highlights which key area(s) require greater emphasis to achieve ‘best practice’. The ’comments’ section should be used to record additional information and notations about how you are addressing that particular principle or your current practice.

There is some ‘overlap’ between some of the principles/criteria; these reinforce the importance of certain elements that are important for effective networks. In order to better understand whether or not a particular principle is relevant to your MPA Network, you may find it useful to refer back to the Case Studies cited throughout the longer document illustrating key principles.

Note that this checklist may also be applied at different scales; wherever an asteric (*) occurs in the checklist, you can specify the scale at which you are making your assessment; for example, you may want to make the assessment at the following scales:

? NATIONAL SCALE ? REGIONAL SCALE ? LOCAL SCALE

Suggestions for amendments/improvements to the checklist will be gladly accepted; please contact any of the authors listed at the front of this publication. In developing this checklist we have drawn on the principles and approaches of other existing checklists and we therefore acknowledge the role of the following in helping shape this approach:

Staub, F and ME Hatziolos (2004) Score Card to Assess Progress in Achieving Management Effectiveness Goals for Marine Protected Areas. The World Bank, Washington DC, USA 30 pp.
Mangubhai, S (nd) Interim Guidelines for the Assessment of Management Effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas in the western Indian Ocean. Report produced for IUCN supported by NORAD. 37pp.
Corrales, L (2005) Manual for the Rapid Evaluation of Management Effectiveness in Marine Protected Areas of Mesoamerica. PROARCA, The Nature Conservancy, Technical Document No 17, 54 pp
Micronesians in Island Conservation (MIC) Network (2004). Effective Conservation Programs Scorecard. The Nature Conservancy, unpublished document, 14pp.