Marine protected areas provide almost no actual coverage for threatened sharks and rays in national waters. Global conservation agreements assume that expanding protected ocean territory will automatically shelter endangered species. However, the spatial boundaries drawn for no-take marine reserves sit apart from the geographic ranges where these animals live.
When countries establish protected boundaries in their exclusive economic zones, they place the restricted perimeters outside critical marine animal territory. This placement acts like locking an empty room while leaving the occupied space open to fishing fleets. Because the borders miss these habitats, fishing gear operates directly in the waters where sharks and rays live. Many designated zones also permit commercial extraction because governments fail to establish strict no-take restrictions.
Researchers overlaid global species range maps with marine protected area boundaries across national exclusive economic zones. They calculated the percentage of each species’ range falling inside no-take reserves that ban all extractive activities. The team found that no Critically Endangered species has more than five percent of its range in no-take reserves, and seventy-nine percent of threatened species have less than one percent protection.
The findings show that closing the gap between raw coverage goals and actual biodiversity gains requires species-focused protection. Currently, only thirty-four percent of countries report take-status information for any of their marine protected areas to the World Database on Protected Areas.