BUILD A GIANT BEACH UMBRELLA

USC teams up with ShadeLA coalition to cool Los Angeles ahead of 2028

ShadeLA, a new USC-led initiative, unites civic, academic and community partners to expand urban tree canopy and shade infrastructure — building lasting heat resilience for Angelenos well beyond 2028.

University of Southern California

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Extreme heat is the most dangerous climate threat facing Los Angeles — one that’s growing more severe each year. (Graphic/USC Brand Creative)

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Credit: (Graphic/USC Brand Creative)

USC on Wednesday announced ShadeLA, a bold new collaborative effort to cool Los Angeles by expanding tree canopy and shade infrastructure in key public and community spaces.

With major sporting events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the horizon — and as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat waves — ShadeLA aims to keep Angelenos and visitors safe while leaving a lasting legacy of resilience.

ShadeLA is led by USC Dornsife Public Exchange in collaboration with UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and with participation by the city of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles Chief Sustainability Office, L.A. Metro and the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (LA28). The campaign is powered by a growing list of community-based organizations who have led on-the-ground shade projects across Los Angeles and the region, helping ensure solutions are locally driven and responsive to neighborhood priorities. ShadeLA builds on the city’s leadership on tree canopy equity and its longstanding partnership with USC’s Urban Trees Initiative.

“For years, USC Dornsife Public Exchange has been leading the way on sustainable urban forestry,” USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim said. “Now, we’re proud to be spearheading ShadeLA, an important initiative that leverages our cutting-edge research to improve quality of life for all of us in Los Angeles.”

“Extreme heat continues to impact the lives of the people of Los Angeles, and this partnership empowers our communities to come together, build resilience and cool our neighborhoods,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said. “As we prepare to welcome the world, this initiative will leave a lasting legacy for Angelenos for years to come.”

ShadeLA: Tackling the deadliest climate threat of our time

Extreme heat is the most dangerous climate threat facing Los Angeles — one that’s growing more severe each year. The city’s dense population, concrete infrastructure and uneven tree cover amplify temperatures, especially in vulnerable neighborhoods. Extreme heat leads to an estimated 1,500 excess daily emergency room visits per “heat day” across L.A. County. By 2050, the number of extreme heat days is projected to increase by 31%, placing even greater strain on low-income communities and communities of color, who face higher risks of heat-related illness and limited access to cooling and care.

Shade is one of the most effective, low-cost ways to reduce heat risk. Whether from a tree, canopy, awning or bus shelter, shaded areas can feel between 35 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than in the sun. It’s simple, scalable and can be integrated into everyday spaces where people live, work and move.

Los Angeles County has less shade than the national average. Urbanized areas of the county only have an average of 21% shade at noon when the sun is directly overhead, compared with the national average of 27%, according to the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and their National Shade Map that is part of American Forests’ Tree Equity Score.

“ShadeLA is about more than trees and structures — it’s about people,” said Monica Dean, climate and sustainability practice director at USC Dornsife Public Exchange. “This campaign addresses heat not just as an environmental issue, but as a public health, infrastructure and community challenge. We’re designing solutions to protect lives — during major events and every day.”

What ShadeLA will do

The campaign focuses on four key goals:

• Add shade: ShadeLA is working with public agencies, schools, businesses and community organizations to bring new shade to the places people need it most — on schoolyards, sidewalks, parks and other everyday spaces.
• Protect existing shade: Maintaining the shade we already have — whether from mature trees or built structures — is critical to keeping communities cool. ShadeLA supports local caretakers, provides guidance and training, and works with public agencies to clarify responsibilities and secure funding for ongoing upkeep.
• Use science to inform decisions: Research, data and planning tools are used to pinpoint where shade is most needed, evaluate which solutions will have the greatest impact and track results over time. This evidence-based approach helps ensure that shade projects are not only well-placed, but also aligned with public health, climate and community priorities — turning research insights into real-world action.
• Make it easy to act: Adding shade shouldn’t be complicated — but too often, it is. ShadeLA works to streamline the process by offering practical tools, clear guidance and technical support for residents, businesses, schools and agencies. Many resources are already available, but confusion and misperceptions can stand in the way. By addressing these barriers head-on, the campaign empowers more people to take part in building a cooler Los Angeles.

These efforts will evolve and be developed in coordination with local communities and organizations across Los Angeles. Together, they aim to build a more comfortable and livable L.A., one shaded space at a time.

“We are committed to helping residents keep their cool as climate impacts intensify,” said Rita Kampalath, chief sustainability officer for Los Angeles County. “Creating more built and natural shade will not only benefit visitors, but will pay dividends for vulnerable residents for generations to come.”

From planting trees to building shade

USC Dornsife Public Exchange and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation bring considerable experience to ShadeLA. Public Exchange leads the USC Urban Trees Initiative, a multi-year, data-driven effort to help the city of Los Angeles prioritize tree planting in areas of greatest need. That work combines environmental, public health and equity data to guide tree planting efforts and contributed to the planting and care of nearly 1,000 trees in South and East Los Angeles.

UCLA is demonstrating how trees and other forms of shade affect people’s heat experiences and measuring the impact of shade in places such as homes, schools and streetscapes. For example, the new National Shade Map, developed by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and American Forests, empowers communities to see when and where they have shade, providing decision-makers the first accessible, comprehensive opportunity to identify “shade deserts” and prioritize investments to mitigate the impacts of heat.

While trees are essential, they aren’t always feasible — especially in dense, paved or transit-heavy areas where space, soil and infrastructure constraints limit planting. ShadeLA builds on this foundation by expanding the focus to include built shade solutions like canopies, awnings and modular structures.

“We’re at a critical juncture as L.A. gets hotter, and we are thrilled to partner with USC, to lead with evidence, and to collectively envision a livable future for our region,” said Edith de Guzman, water and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

To launch the campaign, ShadeLA is introducing a set of activities to spark innovation, engage the public and guide smart investments. In the weeks ahead, new survey data from LABarometer, based at USC Dornsife’s Center for Economic and Social Research, will offer insights into how residents experience heat and value shade in their neighborhoods.

A global spotlight on Los Angeles

L.A. will soon welcome the world for major global sporting events. In 2026, SoFi Stadium will host eight FIFA World Cup matches, including the U.S. men’s national team opener. In 2028, Los Angeles will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“LA28 is committed to incorporating sustainable solutions throughout the Games’ footprint,” said Becky Dale, vice president of sustainability at LA28. “ShadeLA supports not only keeping spectators cool during the Games, but also leaving a legacy of a cooler, greener Los Angeles for all Angelenos.”

By expanding shade and modeling collaborative climate action, ShadeLA aims to show how a major global city can tackle extreme heat while creating safer, healthier public spaces for everyone — now and for decades to come.

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For more information, see the ShadeLA Fact Sheet.

 

One billion-year-old rules of protein stability revealed

Huge experiment reveals rules governing protein stability, paving way to faster drug and enzyme design

Center for Genomic Regulation

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The core (gold and black) and surface (silver) residues that were randomised

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Credit: Albert Escobedo/Centro de Regulación Genómica

Proteins are life’s molecular workhorses, doing everything from turning sunlight into food to fighting viruses. They are built from 20 different types of amino acid molecules, so even a small protein made of 60 amino acids in length can, in theory, be constructed in a quinquavigintillion, or 10⁷⁸, different ways. That’s about as many atoms there are in the entire universe. 

How did evolution choose the handful of amino acid combinations that result in proteins which fold, stay stable and get the job done? And can we learn these rules to help protein engineers design better medicines and greener catalysts? A study published today in the journal Science has taken an important step toward answering both questions. 

Proteins have a core that keeps the structure from collapsing, while the surface does most of the work, such as binding with other molecules. For decades, biologists assumed that altering the core was like removing a load-bearing wall: one wrong move and the whole structure collapses. Because buried amino acids are packed tightly, it seemed logical that any alteration can force neighbouring amino acids to shift, resulting in unpredictable domino effects that ripple throughout the protein. 

With this classical picture of protein stability, most changes to the building blocks of a protein would set off hidden booby traps and threaten to knock the entire structure out of shape. Given the sheer number of combinations possible, the odds of evolution stumbling onto a safe route to create new proteins seems very small. 

The study turns this idea on its head. Researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, studied a human protein domain (the functional bit of a protein) called FYN-SH3, making hundreds of thousands of variants and testing which ones still folded and worked. 

The experiments revealed that SH3 retained its shape and function across thousands of different core and surface combinations. Only a few true, load-bearing amino acids existed in the protein’s core. 

“Our data challenges the dogma of proteins being a delicate house of cards. The physical rules governing their stability is more like Lego than Jenga, where a change to one brick threatening to bring the entire structure down is a rare, and crucially, predictable phenomenon,” explains Dr. Albert Escobedo, first author of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Genomic Regulation.  

The team used the large amount of data generated by their experiments to test whether learning the rules from one protein could help explain the evolution of all related proteins that exist in Nature. They fed the data into a machine-learning algorithm, which helped them create a tool that can predict whether an SH3 sequence will stay stable. 

SH3 domains have been diversifying since early multicellular life, roughly one billion years ago. The researchers compared their model against 51,159 natural SH3 sequences found in public databases spanning the entire tree of life, including bacteria, plants, insects and humans. The algorithm correctly flagged almost all SH3 domains as stable, even when a test sequence shared less than a quarter of the sequence with the human version.  

“Evolution didn’t have to sift through an entire universe of sequences. Instead, the biochemical laws of folding create a vast, forgiving landscape for natural selection,” says Dr. Escobedo. 

Implications for protein engineering 

The field of protein engineering currently relies on companies screening thousands of protein variants with minimal changes, inching forward a few changes at a time and making the design of new enzymes, drugs and vaccines slow and expensive. 

The confirmation that protein stability follows simpler rules than previously thought can slash the trial-and-error phase for protein design, saving significant time and effort for developing proteins with medical or industrial applications, such as greener catalysts or longer-lasting medicines.  

For example, therapeutic enzymes often fail because their surfaces trigger immune flare-ups. Resurfacing these proteins is labour intensive, requiring lots of trial and error to avoid the scaffold from collapsing and sabotaging a promising design. Now, protein engineers can propose bolder designs, including dozens of simultaneous changes, on computers and walk into the lab already knowing which variants are most likely to survive both folding and functional tests.  

“The ability to predict and model protein evolution opens the door to designing biology at industrial speed, challenging the conservative pacing of protein engineering,” explains ICREA Research Professor Ben Lehner, corresponding author of the study with dual affiliation at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. 

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adq3948 

Article Title

Genetics, energetics, and allostery in proteins with randomized cores and surfaces

Article Publication Date

24-Jul-2025

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Two studies reveal global patterns of industrial fishing across marine protected areas

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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Aerial view of Bikar Atoll, with southern tip and Bikar Islands in the foreground. The National Geographic Pristine Seas team, in collaboration with the Marshall Islands  Marine Resources Authority (MIMRA) and the Government of the Marshall Islands,  conducted an expedition to the remote atolls of Bikar, Bokak, Bikini, and Rongerik.  This expedition was in support of Reimaanlok, the Marshallese national framework  for the planning and establishment of community-based conservation areas. In 2025, the Republic of the Marshall Islands established their  first national marine sanctuary — which covers 48,000 square kilometers of water — providing an exceedingly rare glimpse into a pristine part of the Pacific Ocean.

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Credit: Steve Spence, National Geographic Pristine Seas

In two separate studies leveraging satellite imagery and artificial intelligence techniques, researchers reveal patterns of industrial fishing in coastal marine protected areas (MPAs) worldwide. Collectively, the findings, which may seem contradictory, show that although industrial fishing vessels are present in many protected areas worldwide, MPAs with the highest levels of protection remain largely unfished. Both studies suggest that proper investment in protected areas will pay off and that synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology could be one of the key tools used to safeguard the ocean’s future sustainability. Roughly 8% of the global ocean is formally protected, with ambitious international targets aiming to more than triple that coverage by 2030. While such protections can yield substantial long-term benefits, especially when paired with adequate fisheries management, potential gains are often compromised by inadequate regulations. In many cases, destructive, illegal, or unreported fishing practices persist even within designated protected areas due to insufficient safeguards. Global-scale monitoring of industrial fishing, including within MPAs, has been aided by the emergence of automatic identification system (AIS) data, which tracks the activity of individual vessels. However, not all vessels are required to use it. Many disable their transponders to avoid detection, making it difficult to obtain reliable, large-scale estimates of fishing pressure within MPAs. As a result, the true effectiveness of MPAs worldwide remains poorly understood.

 

In one study, Jennifer Raynor and colleagues analyzed 455 coastal MPAs classified as “fully” or “highly” protected under the MPA guide, an assessment framework that evaluates protections based on both regulations and management practices. These categories fully ban industrial fishing within their bounds. Raynor et al. combined AI methods with a recently published global SAR satellite imagery dataset to directly identify industrial fishing vessels operating within MPAs, regardless of whether their AIS is active. The authors found that, overall, very little unauthorized industrial fishing activity occurs in MPAs that prohibit it, averaging just one vessel detected per 20,000 square kilometers – a rate 9 times lower than in unprotected exclusive economic zones. Although a few MPAs in East and South Asia showed higher vessel densities, these cases were outliers driven by small geographic areas and sporadic detections. Only seven MPAs worldwide had vessels present on more than half of observed days, highlighting how rare such activity is in strongly protected areas. Raynor et al. also demonstrate SAR imagery’s reliability in detecting unauthorized fishing vessels. Not only did the method successfully identify AIS-broadcasting vessels with high accuracy, it also detected vessels in 163 MPAs where AIS data showed none, particularly in regions like Southeast Asia, where AIS is often incomplete.

 

In another study, Raphael Seguin and colleagues quantified fishing activities across a larger group of 6021 coastal MPAs representing a wide range of protective categories as outlined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) management framework. Using the same SAR dataset and deep learning models, Sequin et al. discovered that nearly half of the MPAs evaluated showed evidence of industrial fishing at levels in many cases matching or exceeding those in nearby unprotected waters. According to the findings, industrial fishing vessels were detected in 47% of the world’s coastal MPAs. While stricter IUCN categories did correlate with reduced fishing, the authors concluded that factors such as MPA size and remoteness were more predictive of fishing presence than official protection category alone. In a Perspective, Boris Worm discusses the possible drivers underlying the differences in the two studies’ findings. “Many MPAs have been established quickly without strong protective regulations, meaningful consultation with local stakeholders, or appropriate management capacity. In some cases, this has resulted in “paper parks” that are recognized as protected areas but do not prevent harmful activities,” writes Worm. “Yet the available data show that where proper investments are made, industrial exploitation is curtailed, and protective measures are comprehensive, long-term benefits will accrue.”

  

This map shows two ways the researchers tracked industrial fishing activity over 2017-2021. The top panel uses signals from ships’ Automatic Identification System (AIS), which broadcast their location, speed, and identity. By analyzing these signals with artificial intelligence (AI), researchers can estimate where fishing is likely happening. However, some vessels turn off their AIS or don’t carry it at all. The bottom panel uses satellite-based radar (Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR) to spot these so-called “dark” vessels that would otherwise go undetected. SAR works by sending radar pulses to the ocean’s surface and measuring the reflections, allowing AI models to identify most vessels over 15 meters long even if they have no AIS. The map shows industrial fishing activity density estimated from AIS (average daily apparent fishing hours per 100 square kilometers) and the density of vessels detected by SAR (vessels per 100 square kilometers at the time of satellite flyovers). Points indicate the center of each marine protected area.

Credit

Jennifer Raynor, Sara Orofino, and Gavin McDonald

Data is available for the production of data visualizations. For more information, please contact Raphael Seguin at raphaelseguin@protonmail.com

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adt9009 

Article Title

Little-to-no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected marine areas

Article Publication Date

24-Jul-2025

Satellites show that strictly protected marine areas exclude industrial fishing!

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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A side-by-side comparison of fishing vessel data detected via AIS and those detected by SAR techniques.

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Credit: Illustration by Jennifer Raynor

Illegal fishing is a global problem that threatens the health of ocean ecosystems and the economic viability of the fishing industry. Marine protected areas (MPAs)—zones set aside to safeguard marine life—are a key tool for conservation, but monitoring them has been a long-standing challenge.

Researchers led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Jennifer Raynor showed that artificial intelligence methods applied to satellite data provide a powerful new way to assess industrial fishing activity in MPAs, bridging blind spots in current monitoring methods. The first-of-its-kind study, published in the journal Science, found that the world’s most strongly protected MPAs had little-to-no industrial fishing activity.

"We found that MPAs with strict legal fishing bans work better than critics claim,” says Raynor, a professor of natural resource economics in UW–Madison’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. “MPAs can help to regenerate fish populations, which creates strong incentives for illegal fishing—and yet, that activity was mostly absent. This is good news for marine conservation.”

Strongly protected MPAs had significantly less fishing activity than surrounding waters, averaging nine times fewer fishing vessels per square kilometer than unprotected coastal areas. In addition, 25% of MPAs had no fishing vessels present from 2017 to 2021.

Raynor and her colleagues at National Geographic Pristine Seas and the University of California, Santa Barbara, analyzed 1,380 MPAs that ban industrial fishing. Located within the world’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs), or waters under the jurisdiction of coastal nations, they captured 2.1% of the global ocean by area, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Hawaii’s Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.

First, the researchers examined 5 billion real-time vessel locations from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which broadcasts vessel identity, position, course and speed to shore-based receivers to support marine safety. The AIS analysis showed little apparent fishing effort during the five-year study period. However, not all vessels are required to use the system, and captains can disable transponders or tamper with location broadcasts to evade detection. In addition, AIS is unreliable in areas with poor signal reception, such as parts of Southeast Asia.

To track the “dark vessels” that are absent from AIS data, the researchers used images created by satellites that send radar pulses to the ocean surface and measure the reflected signals (SAR, or synthetic aperture radar). A previous study showed that analyzing these reflectance patterns with AI methods reliably identified fishing vessels more than 15 meters long.

The new analysis detected just one vessel per 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles), on average, in 455 MPAs with the highest imaging frequency during the study period, corroborating the AIS results. Expanding the sample to 638 MPAs with at least one satellite image increased the proportion with no vessel detections from 25% to 42%. This strengthened the argument that little-to-no industrial fishing activity occurred in MPAs that ban this activity.

Importantly, the AIS data missed almost 90% of SAR-based fishing vessel detections. This was compelling evidence that relying on AIS-based monitoring alone is problematic, especially in areas with low adoption rates, frequent tampering, or poor signal reception. Resource-limited nations can collaborate with nonprofit organizations like Global Fishing Watch to enhance their ocean monitoring efforts with satellite-based tools, says Raynor.

By helping the ocean recover from fishing pressure, MPAs boost biodiversity inside their boundaries. But they also provide spillover benefits. "Because strictly protected marine areas discourage illegal fishing, fishes are far more abundant within their boundaries, they produce many more babies, and help replenish surrounding areas,” says Enric Sala, a marine ecologist and founder of Pristine Seas, which funded the study. “In other words, the fishing industry benefits from following the rules.” 

Previous research showed, for example, that the fishing restrictions in the no-take Papaānaumokuākea Marine National Monument increased catch rates of yellowfin and bigeye tunas around it.

Raynor hopes the new findings will help shape global policies for future MPAs. “By using satellites to track fishing vessels, countries can predict the locations of illegal activities and target patrol efforts, saving both manpower and money,” she says. “This is critical for reaching the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30 by 30 target, which aims to protect 30% of oceans by 2030.”

Special Notes to Reporters: More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online at the Science press package at https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adt9009 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

New research: Satellite imagery detects illegal fishing activity, shows strict protections work

The first-of-its-kind study reveals that the world’s most strongly protected marine reserves successfully curb industrial fishing activity, offering a new way to assess fishing compliance and bridge blind spots in current monitoring methods.

National Geographic Pristine Seas

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Washington, D.C. (July 24, 2025) — New peer-reviewed research in the journal Science demonstrates the power of strict legal bans against industrial fishing in marine protected areas (MPAs). The analysis — which combines satellite imagery and artificial intelligence technology to detect previously untraceable vessels — reveals that most of the globe’s fully and highly protected MPAs successfully deter illegal fishing. The study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the most strictly protected marine reserves are well respected and are not simply “paper parks.”

The study, “Little-to-no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected marine areas” finds that: 

• 78.5% of the 1,380 MPAs studied had no commercial fishing activity;
• Of the MPAs where satellite images detected illegal fishing activity, 82% of them averaged less than 24 hours of activity per calendar year; 
• Strongly protected MPAs had, on average, nine times fewer fishing vessels per square kilometer than unprotected coastal areas; and 
• MPAs designated as strictly-protected with significant fishing activity included those in the Chagos Marine Reserve, the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (combined with the Great Barrier Reef Coast Marine Park), each with approximately 900 hours per year.

“Because strictly protected marine areas discourage illegal fishing, fishes are far more abundant within their boundaries, they produce many more babies, and help replenish surrounding areas,” remarked Enric Sala, one of the study’s co-authors, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, and founder of Pristine Seas. “In other words, the fishing industry benefits from following the rules.”

Illegal fishing poses a significant global threat, jeopardizing both the health of ocean ecosystems and the economic stability of the fishing industry. Scientific evidence shows that strictly protected MPAs restore marine life within their boundaries, improve local fishing, provide jobs and economic benefits, and build resilience against a warming ocean. But when MPAs are minimally or lightly protected, the benefits practically disappear.

“The ocean is no longer too big to watch. With cutting-edge satellites and AI, we’re making illegal fishing visible and proving that strong marine protections work,” said Juan Mayorga, a scientist with Pristine Seas and co-author of the study.

To arrive at their conclusions, researchers analyzed five billion vessel positions from the Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), a GPS-based safety signal transmitted by many industrial fishing vessels, and paired this with satellite images generated by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which can detect vessels regardless of weather or light conditions. The combination of the datasets — and the use of AI models developed by Global Fishing Watch — allowed researchers to detect the majority of fishing vessels over fifteen meters long, including so-called dark vessels that do not broadcast their location and often operate to evade detection.

“No single dataset can solve the challenge of monitoring fishing activity at sea; each has its blind spots,” asserted Mayorga. “But when we combine them, their power emerges. By fusing AIS tracking with satellite radar imagery and AI, we are now much closer to the full picture of human activity across the ocean. That’s especially important in the crown jewels of the ocean — the world’s most strongly protected areas — where the stakes for enforcement and biodiversity are highest.”

Researchers found that the AIS data missed almost 90% of SAR-based fishing vessel detections within these MPAs. Inaccurate data, limited resources and the vastness of the ocean have made effectively monitoring MPAs for industrial fishing a challenge. This groundbreaking methodology offers a powerful new way to assess fishing compliance and bridge blind spots in current monitoring methods, the authors found. 

“By using satellites to track fishing vessels, countries can predict the locations of illegal activities and target patrol efforts, saving both manpower and money,” said Jennifer Raynor, the study’s lead author and a professor of natural resource economics in UW–Madison’s Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.

A growing body of research shows that MPAs produce spillover of fishes and invertebrates that increases the catches of species from small and sedentary (lobsters, scallops) to large and migratory (tuna). A 2024 study revealed that fishing catch per unit effort increases, on average, 12% to 18% near the boundaries of large fully protected MPAs.

“Illegal fishing takes place in areas of the ocean set aside for protection, but using satellites we have found — for the first time ever — that the level of protection determines how much risk industrial fishers are willing to take on,” Sala remarked. “Fully and highly marine protected areas discourage illegal fishing. The stricter the rules in place to conserve ocean areas, the more benefits nations receive — including more fish to be caught outside protected areas’ boundaries.”

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Note to Reporters: 

Visuals, for editorial use with proper credit, can be found in our press kit. Credit and caption information is included.  

More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online at the Science press package at https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/.
 

National Geographic Pristine Seas

Pristine Seas works with Indigenous and local communities, governments, and other partners to help protect vital places in the ocean using a unique combination of research, community engagement, policy work, and filmmaking. Since 2008, our program has conducted nearly 50 expeditions around the world and helped establish 30 marine reserves, spanning more than 6.9 million square kilometers of ocean.   

Pristine Seas is part of the global non-profit, the National Geographic Society. Our mission is driven by science and filmmaking — we are fully independent from National Geographic publishing and its media arm.
 

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adt9009 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Little-to-no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected marine areas

Article Publication Date

24-Jul-2025