By Nikki Harasta and Beth Pike | January 9, 2026
Recognizing that ocean health is paramount to sustaining life on Earth, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2021-2030 to be the UN Ocean Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (‘Ocean Decade’), creating a global initiative to accelerate scientific understanding and solutions needed for a sustainable ocean. Adding to the significance of the end of the decade, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s Target 3 aims to conserve 30% of global land, waters, and seas by 2030. As 2025 draws to a close, marking the halfway point of the Ocean Decade, this is a critical moment to assess progress to date and identify the actions needed to advance our ocean conservation goals.
Tracking progress toward 30 x 30 requires an understanding of effective conservation and knowledge of which MPAs meet that threshold. Since 2012, the Marine Protection Atlas (MPAtlas) has brought a focused lens to the quality of global marine protection. MPAtlas (mpatlas.org) is the largest global repository of MPA assessments using The MPA Guide, a scientific framework that evaluates an MPA’s stage of establishment and level of protection, which scientific evidence suggests are good indicators of conservation outcomes. The growing MPAtlas dataset is used to categorize, track, and visualize MPAs based on the biodiversity outcomes they are likely to achieve.
So, at the midway point of the Ocean Decade, are we halfway to 30%? Let’s take a look at the data.
Global Progress Toward 30% Protection
Since the publication of The MPA Guide in 2021, the MPAtlas research team has worked with numerous partners with country or site-specific MPA expertise to complete, verify, and aggregate assessment data. To date, we’ve assessed over 90% of global MPA area, publishing more than 1,600 MPA assessments with more than 3,200 additional assessments in progress. The published assessments cover nearly 43,830,000 km2 and 12.1% of the global ocean (including proposed MPAs), providing a critical tool for measuring progress towards 30x30.
The WDPA (World Database of Protected Areas) currently reports 9.6% of the ocean is protected. Based on the more rigorous assessments from MPAtlas, only 3.2% of the global ocean is fully or highly protected, meaning they are managed and protected effectively enough to produce conservation benefits and contribute meaningfully to the 30 x 30 target. In 2024, the MPAtlas team led a study that established a baseline for the 30 x 30 target by evaluating over 90% of the global MPA area, finding that approximately one quarter of existing reported marine protection is not yet implemented on the water and an additional one-third allows highly impactful activities (e.g., bottom trawl fishing, dredging) that are not compatible with conservation.
The impact of destructive human activities was illuminated this year in the poignant documentary Ocean with David Attenborough, which featured shocking scenes of bottom trawl fishing vessels destroying benthic habitats and scooping up all life within their path. The film cited the principal MPAtlas statistic – only 3% effective protection – and called for increased and expanded ocean protections. An additional 27% of global ocean area needs to be effectively protected in the next 5 years to achieve global targets and evade grave ecological tipping points. This means the rate of current progress needs to be rapidly accelerated – not only in the creation of new MPAs but in our efforts to ensure new and existing MPAs have the resources, capacity, and regulations necessary to effectively protect biodiversity.
Beacons of Hope from 2025
Looking back on 2025, perhaps the most notable win for marine conservation was the ratification of the High Seas Treaty. This global agreement, over 20 years in the making, provides a mechanism for creating High Seas MPAs, opening a crucial pathway to achieving 30 x 30.
Nearly half of the global ocean is beyond national jurisdictions, and these distant waters contain vital deep-sea habitats, unique seafloor morphology, and migratory pathways for many species. The question is now how long it will take countries to develop proposals and establish MPAs.
Another noteworthy moment was at the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, as several countries made bold commitments to create, expand, and strengthen MPAs:
- Chile made massive waves by implementing long awaited management plans for three huge MPAs in 2025. Nazca Desventuradas Marine Park (229,947 km2), Motu Motiro Hiva Marine Park (150,079 km2), and Rapa Nui Multiple Use Conservation Area (578,583 km2) together raised Chile’s implemented and highly or fully protected marine area to 12.3%, making them well poised to reach their individual 30 x 30 target.
- South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands (SGSSI), one of Britain’s overseas territories, expanded its MPA network to 1,204,353 km2, accounting for 0.33% of total ocean area. This expansion blows past SGSSI’s 30 x 30 target, covering 40.1% of its waters with high to full protection.
- American Samoa took a large leap towards its 30% target with the implementation of five MPAs in May, adding 33,389 km2 of ocean to its fully protected tally and bringing Samoa’s fully protected MPA coverage to 25.6% of its waters.
- French Polynesia announced an ambitious plan to establish more than 900,000 km2 of protection across its EEZ with part of it in four fully or highly protected areas.
- The nations of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea announced its intention to create the world’s largest Indigenous-led MPA. The proposed Melanesian Ocean Reserve will secure protection for 4,628,248 km2 across all three countries once implemented.
New Years Resolutions: Looking Ahead
As progress continues, the global conservation community needs a clear understanding and accounting of meaningful progress to keep us on track toward an effective 30% that delivers biodiversity benefits. With the anticipated development of High Seas MPAs, continued expansion of national MPA networks, and other effective conservation measures (OECMs) increasing in number, the scientists at MPAtlas will continue evaluating effective protections and progress towards 30 x 30. Looking ahead to 2026 and the second half of the UN Ocean decade, the MPAtlas team is establishing some New Year’s Resolutions and suggesting a couple for countries to adopt themselves:
No backsliding.
Forward momentum cannot be assumed. Some of the world’s best examples, including the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, and the rest of the US National Monument system, are under threat of downgrading and degazettement. Across the Pacific, Palau’s government is considering re-opening broad swaths of its protected waters to industrial fishing. Stopping these rollbacks and holding the line at 3.2% is the first crucial piece of attaining 30 x 30.
Expand the global network.
We’ve got a lot of ground (or rather, sea) to cover to secure another 27% of conserved marine area in the next 5 years. The call for countries to implement meaningful conservation measures with tangible outcomes is ever more important in this final stretch.
Grow the dataset.
MPAtlas data is fundamental to understanding whether or not we achieve the objective of protecting biodiversity. We will continue to provide transparency and accountability to global 30 x 30 reporting by scaling up MPA Guide Assessments to cover unassessed MPAs as well as updating progress when changes happen.
Make new friends.
MPA experts of all kinds are needed in this collaborative, global effort. Primary knowledge of MPAs is a welcome and vital asset to producing high quality assessments. If you’re reading this, consider yourself formally invited to help close information gaps by e-mailing us at info@mpatlas.org.
Lead the charge.
Finally, we will work with global partners to establish best practices for High Seas conservation in order to secure effective MPAs. As experts in MPA quality assessments and tracking, you can count on the MPAtlas team to assist the new generation of High Seas MPAs with lessons learned from our focus on highly and fully protected areas.