Funded in part by GPSR, James Cook University professor Colin Simpfendorfer is researching various strategies to enhance shark and ray protections. Identifying lessons learned from past and present marine protected area (MPA) designations, he and his team are developing spatially explicit models to enable prediction of where marine predicted areas will be most useful in achieving conservation outcomes, as well as socio-economic criteria for predicting and monitoring success of MPAs.
This information will provide decision-makers with a set of objective products that can be used to make informed decisions about the use of MPAs to improve conservation of sharks and rays. The scale of the products developed will range from national to global, with MPA sizes from sub-national to national representing coastal and open ocean areas.
