We examined the objectives stated within 26 management plans (all the management plans available) to understand their variety, frequency, and characteristics, and we identified 16 types of objectives within the plans (Fig. 2). Objectives were all qualitative and related to either ecological, social and governance dimensions (Fig. 2). Objectives suffered from issues of clarity and specificity, hindering their translation into action. Ecological objectives focused on biodiversity representation and persistence, ecological restoration, ecosystem services and biodiversity richness. Social objectives focused on furthering sustainable development, well-being, establishing the area as a symbolic environmental reference point, protection of historical and cultural sites, education and outreach, and research. Governance objectives focused on management, monitoring, enforcement, local participation and institutional alignment by better integrating the MPA with regional governance.

Fig. 2.

Classification of ecological (orange), governance (red), and social (blue) objectives for the 26 Brazilian MPAs that had this information available. Graphs indicated the percentage management plans that had an objective within each category.

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Most plans presented a commendable balance of social and ecological objectives (n = 25) but they all lacked a quantitative formulation and a link to specific timeframes. Quantitative objectives are refinements of the high-level goals, and allow the integration of scientific insights within the MPA design; they inform assessments of progress towards desired impacts and outcomes (Game et al., 2013). Overarching objectives such as “to promote the maintenance of genetic variability” are operational with well-defined reference points; for example, “identifying the top x% of sites ranked by their expected contribution to population persistence and gene flow” (Magris et al., 2014).

Social objectives can also be better specified, especially when accounting for measurable increases in physical, social and material wellbeing (e.g. health, self-respect, and food security respectively) or inequality (e.g. changes in social mobility, Hicks et al., 2016). Stakeholders and managers can assess the outcomes of using these objectives and iteratively refine them. Plans should link objectives to realistic timeframes, budgets, and the agencies responsible for their implementation to facilitate transitioning from objectives to actions (ICSU, 2015).

We reviewed all the information on monitoring within the federal MPA plans and found that none of the existing management plans available for the federal MPAs has explicitly linked their monitoring programs to their stated objectives. Thus, we could not find any information on how the proposed (or ongoing) monitoring would answer questions around management effectiveness. Additionally, while the scientific literature stresses the importance of adaptive management, where a structured approach is taken to decision making based on learned lessons (Holling, 1978; Walters and Hilborn, 1978), plans were not regularly revised or updated. We found that only two federal MPA management plans had ever been updated in Brazil, and only one additional manager indicated that a revision was scheduled. Although learning will continuously happen through the exchange of information within management councils, the lack of strategic monitoring and evaluation of management plans currently hinders this learning and improvements of national MPA planning.

Monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation ensure that marine management is continuously assessed, improving future planning and decision-making (Douvere and Ehler, 2011). To meet those needs, MPA managers are required to continually collect evidence to determine whether management actions lead to the desired outcomes. The systematic quantification of the MPAs impacts in Brazil has been recently established by a participatory monitoring program called Programa Monitora (Ribeiro, 2018). At the outset, the appropriate rigour of design protocols for such assessments of the MPA performance are lacking because they do not identify the state of ecological health in a ‘control’ area. A rigorous evaluation involves comparing the changes in social, economic or ecological characteristics attributable to MPAs against changes in comparable areas without MPAs (Basurto et al., 2016). More sophisticated evaluations require baseline data and often involve a “theory of change” which describes the sequence of outcomes expected to occur from interventions (Mascia et al., 2017). Ideally, MPAs would be implemented as policy experiments, with explicit adaptive and collaborative governance approaches in the framing of management plans, which include monitoring and assessment of management interventions as key components (Fox et al., 2012). Learning and adaptive management will require systems, a secure work environment, staff autonomy and capacity building, but is critical given MPAs are part of a dynamic social-ecological system.

Our review of the federal MPA plans found that of the 70 Brazilian MPAs, 25 have deliberative management councils, comprising the federal authority (Instituto Chico Mendes da Conservação de Biodiversidade) and societal constituents with a statutory focus on local traditional people (e.g., Extractive Reserves). The remaining 45 have consultative management councils, where decisions are led by government. Involving stakeholders in the planning processes and creating opportunities for dialogue is critical in the implementation of MPA plans (e.g. Gleason et al., 2010), and a deliberative decision-making structure is likely to provide a better platform for legitimate decisions. However, this structure does not guarantee full participation or perceived legitimacy of the MPA (Gerhardinger et al., 2009). The frequency and size of meetings, differences in interest groups, access to and context of the process, discontinuity and delays in processes and decision-making, and the degree of influence in decisions affect the perceived legitimacy of rule-making (Dalton, 2006). Decisions of the management councils can be overruled: the lobby of influential sectors often overturns management council decisions for sustainable use MPAs in controversial environmental licensing processes (Macedo et al., 2013). Typically, sustaining long-term collaboration is challenging in Brazil, where a lack of institutional and resource provision stability; combined with little political culture of social participation in the development of MPAs hinders public environmental stewardship (e.g. Trimble et al., 2014).

Past research has shown that greater levels of participation are paramount for Brazilian MPA planning processes (Gerhardinger et al., 2009). Stakeholder participation in the design and implementation of MPAs can provide multiple benefits. The integration of resource users and their knowledge into MPA planning fosters compromise, responsibility, and empowerment (Berkes, 2004; Gerhardinger et al., 2009). Stakeholder participation facilitates congruence between the distribution of benefits and costs of MPAs and local conditions, as those impacted by decisions can express and resolve their concerns. Additionally, collective-choice arrangements can increase perceived legitimacy of rules and subsequently their compliance (Moura et al., 2009; Ostrom, 1990).

Among the challenges of engaging participation are the large numbers of stakeholders, especially when developing large MPAs. Other countries have already faced these same issues, which have been solved through different avenues, including hundreds of meetings and public presentations, ongoing informal public engagement, online tools that allow stakeholders to provide information and feedback on the plan (e.g. http://www.seasketch.org/) and the distribution of brochures and booklets (e.g. Thompson et al., 2004). Brazilian MPAs with long-standing councils can also provide valuable insights by sharing lessons they have already learned (Almeida et al., 2009; Nobre et al., 2017). For example, the management council associated with the Prainha do Canto Verde Extractive Reserve emphasizes the importance to the implementation of measures to protect against land grabbing when defining management rules as many communities only hold informal land rights (Prado, submitted for publication).

Cost information was available for 10 of the 70 federal MPAs examined, and the detail provided varied widely. Instead of representing current expenditures, costs included only the resources predicted for implementation. We classified these costs into opportunity, acquisition, transaction, damage, and management based on Naidoo et al. (2006). We further divided management costs into fixed and variable (see Table 1). All other costs related to “public communication” and “alternative livelihood programs”. We standardized data based on the budget period (five years) and converted the currency into US dollars at 2020 exchange rates (1 R$ :0.22 U$) after applying the average inflation rate from the time of the plan publication to 2020 (Supplementary Table 3). Across Brazilian Federal MPAs, the most consistently significant costs involved infrastructure, human resources and enforcement (Fig. 3). Acquisition cost was only estimated for three MPAs and was the highest cost for one of them. A lack of consideration of acquisition costs can reflect systematic avoidance of the acquisition of land associated with a MPA (e.g. to protect coastal vegetation) and, if so, costs of all MPAs are sub-estimated. The average total costs we calculated is consistent with previous estimates that the creation and consolidation of a Brazilian federal protected area costs from R$ 2.24 M (U$1.44 M) with no visitation to R$ 6.67 M with visitation (U$3.11 M; Muanis et al., 2009). Muanis et al.’s (2009) cost estimates are based on an analysis of the expenses of 51 federal protected areas in the Operative Annual Plan of the Amazon Protected Areas Program (Programa Áreas Protegidas da Amazônia — ARPA) between 2005 and 2008.

Fig. 3.

Costs of MPA implementation in Brazil — not standardized by MPA area. Details are provided in Table 1. The error bars display the variance in the different types of MPA costs for the different MPAs over a 5-yr period (n = 10). Only costs that could be classified are included. We consider infrastructure and human costs to be fixed management costs and internal communications, enforcement, monitoring, research, restoration and other implementation costs to be variable management costs.

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Management plans did not include all MPA costs; opportunity costs, damage costs and the cost of planning were missing from all MPA plans. Opportunity costs associated with fishery and other marine uses are among the most critical for MPA planning (Ban and Klein, 2009). In Brazil, opportunity costs within the management plan will have different degrees of relevance based on the type of MPA. Sustainable use MPAs, with multiple zones, should consider opportunity costs both before MPA designation and during management plan development as they should provide for biodiversity conservation and the sustainability of fisheries (Brazilian federal law number 5.758/06: National Strategic Plan for Protected Areas). We could not estimate opportunity costs of MPA plans, because they were not found within the Brazilian MPA documents we reviewed, signaling they also did not contribute to planning. In this sense, the spatial allocation of management would be a result of the preferences by those involved in the process. Consideration of damage costs was absent in Brazil and is also rare elsewhere (Ban and Klein, 2009). The costs of developing management plans were not available in the plans reviewed, but Muanis et al. (2009) estimate to be approximately R$ 537,000 (U$250,000) for a federal conservation unit. Estimated budgets for the review of the management plans were also not available.

Understanding the costs of MPAs is critical to planning and management. Besides providing transparency and accountability for the expenditure of public and private funds, a diligent consideration of costs allows planners and stakeholders to understand and minimize impacts (Ando et al., 1998). However, the exact costs of MPAs are rarely available (Balmford et al., 2004), thus the detail provided within some of the management plans are a rich source of information.

Financial difficulty in supporting MPAs is a global issue, and in Brazil, it is particularly acute (Gerhardinger et al., 2011). Therefore, management plans should seek economic sustainability of the MPA whenever possible. For example, supplementing public budgets with alternative financing strategies (i.e. tourism fees or private foundations) could reduce the dependence of federal budget and fund maintenance, monitoring and surveillance programs, enhancing management effectiveness (Araújo and Bernard, 2016). Alternative sources of funding and partnerships are critical for MPAs implementation (Maretti et al., 2019). Integrating existing plans with parallel processes may also provide some ability to reduce costs. Since 2014, the Brazilian Marine Protected Areas Project (called ‘GEF Mar’) has significantly increased capacity for MPA management, however, the lack of clarity of the priority actions within each management plans and the fact that most plans are outdated has impaired the translation of these resources to real conservation outcomes on ground.

Out of the 70 existing federal MPAs, 44 have no management plan. For those that do, we calculated the timelag between MPA designation and the development of the management plan, the first phase of MPA implementation (Muanis et al., 2009), and found it spanning up to 30 years (Fig. 4). A protracted application of conservation actions, where incremental actions follow the designation of protected areas, is common globally; likely reflecting limited budgets and the need to consult with the impacted stakeholders (Pressey et al., 2013). The long time lag between implementation (under active management) and the detection of biological benefits (Babcock et al., 2010) and protracted implementation means benefits are likely to take even longer to develop. Initial detection of impacts of target species can take approximately five years, while total recovery from fishing takes in average 35 years (Babcock et al., 2010; MacNeil et al., 2015). Thus, for stakeholders to benefit from MPAs delays in implementation after declaration should be minimal. Additionally, as MPAs generally involve reorganizing the resource use and access rights, delays in the development of a management plan can result in periods of no resource governance (given previous local rules have been curtailed); negatively impacting resource condition and discrediting future management. According to the Brazilian legislation (Law 9985/2000, Art. 27, § 3), a management plan should be elaborated within five years from the MPA designation.

Fig. 4.

Time lag between MPA designation and management plan creation (n = 26).

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In recognition of the limited capacity and resources to enforce marine management, some countries have decentralized management to local communities (e.g. Chile and Fiji). Community authorities and fishers organizations can develop and enforce management, closely aligning management with local objectives (e.g. Gelcich et al., 2010). A few initiatives in Brazil are moving towards this direction and can be built on within the context of MPAs. For example, marine extractive reserves represent progress in the implementation of management within traditional fishing areas (Diegues, 2008). Additionally, there has been some progress in defining Fishing Agreements (“Acordos de Pesca”) — areas with specific fishing rules (Seixas and Kalikoski, 2009). The movement for the regularization of traditional and artisanal fishing territories is endorsed by thousands of fishers and grassroots organizations, but has not yet ranked high among the governmental agendas. Finally, management councils may delineate decisions in an Action Plan that can rule until a complete MPAs management plan is ready, thus providing an opportunity for decreasing further delay associated to improving resource management. The decentralization of resource management in Brazil can increase progress towards the sustainable use of marine resources, and may be critical given the largely unstable institutional and political state of affairs (Pinheiro et al., 2015).