Marine protected areas: connecting hope
- Gabriela Casuso
- Aug 19
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 8
By Gabriela Casuso, marine educator and founder of Proyecto Acuática
When we think about protecting nature, we usually picture forests, jungles, and mountains. But what about the ocean? Who protects what we cannot see?
Marine Protected Areas, or MPAs, are the ocean’s invisible guardians. These are places officially designated by governments to protect marine life, allow species to recover, and ensure that ecosystems can continue doing what they’ve done for millions of years: regulating the climate, supporting biodiversity, and maintaining the planet’s balance.
When these areas are well managed, they can save species and ecosystems, and help us adapt to climate change. Where they exist, biodiversity increases and resilience grows. Where they don’t, we see overfishing, ecological imbalance, and loss of life.
This is something the MigraMar Network knows very well. It’s a community of scientists studying migratory species from Mexico to Chile. Their research has shown something crucial: species like turtles, sharks, and manta rays don’t live in just one place. They migrate, connecting ecosystems across countries and coasts.
That’s why MigraMar is pushing for the creation of marine corridors that work like safe routes connecting key sites like Cocos Island in Costa Rica, Malpelo in Colombia, and the Galápagos in Ecuador. If we only protect part of their journey, we’re failing. Conservation needs a vision that sees the ocean as a whole, and protects it that way.
That includes protecting animals as enormous as the blue whale, longer than an Argentinosaurus and heavier than 30 elephants, as well as those so tiny they’re smaller than your pinky finger: like the Antarctic krill.
This small crustacean, the base of the Southern Ocean food web, is essential for life on Earth. It feeds whales, seals, penguins, and seabirds, but also plays a key role in regulating the global climate, absorbing carbon through its massive swarms, so large they can be seen from space.
But krill is now threatened by industrial fishing and climate change. Just during the 2024–2025 season, more than 518,000 tons of Antarctic krill were extracted, 84% of the annual limit set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
Its future depends on us. Because protecting krill means protecting the food chain, not only in Antarctica, but across the globe. It means defending ecological balance, biodiversity, and even the climate stability we feel on our tropical shores.
At Proyecto Acuática, an educational initiative that connects marine science with communities, we believe conservation is only possible when there is knowledge, commitment, and empathy. We promote ocean literacy so more people understand that
Marine Protected Areas are not just names on a map, they are promises of ecological justice and a legacy for future generations.
We need more young people to become ocean advocates. To know what’s happening below the surface. To recognize that without well-designed and well-connected MPAs, we won’t have a healthy ocean, and without a healthy ocean, life on Earth becomes less sustainable.
So explore, watch documentaries, share real information, get curious.
Because you can’t protect what you don’t know.And you don’t forget what touches your heart.
More information: www.proyectoacuatica.com.co
