Within well-managed multi-use or fully-protected ABCs, species populations and ecosystems can recover even after years of disruptive and destructive human activities (Roman et al., 2014; Obura et al., 2023). Estimates show that significant global oceanic recovery is possible by 2050 if we effectively mitigate pressures like overfishing (Duarte et al., 2020). This can be achieved by limiting fishing effort (e.g., setting and lowering catch quotas), eliminating illegal, unreported, and unregulated catch, discouraging destructive practices (e.g., trawling), and employing restoration techniques (e.g., artificial and living reefs) (Hutchings, 2000; Costello et al., 2016). While tackling overfishing requires long-term, continuous, strict, and well-enforced measures (Jackson et al., 2001; Boonstra et al., 2018; Iacarella et al., 2021), well-managed local fisheries can help fish stocks recover and become climate resilient (Sumaila and Tai, 2020).

However, fishing is not the only stressor influencing ecosystem health. Other anthropogenic stressors that contribute to the degradation of marine and coastal ecosystems include pollution, nutrient enrichment, sedimentation, coastal development, and the removal of key species (Halpern et al., 2007). Often times, these stressors interact synergistically, exacerbating their individual impacts, which is why effective management and mitigation strategies are crucial to enhance the resilience and recovery of marine ecosystems (Borja et al., 2010; Strain et al., 2014; Gil et al., 2016; Fong et al., 2020).

Ecosystem recovery is influenced by factors such as the degree of ecological degradation, the frequency of disturbances (Guidetti and Claudet, 2010), and the underlying traits of endemic organisms and habitats (Dulvy et al., 2021). Additionally, recovery rates vary based on initial management efforts, are often nonlinear (Palumbi et al., 2008; Fogarty et al., 2016), tending to slow down as they near the ecosystem’s carrying capacity (Abesamis et al., 2014). Global stressors, like climate change and pollution, may reduce carrying capacity while slowing or impeding system recovery (Wilson et al., 2020), and climate-exacerbated natural disasters (such as hurricanes, landslides, and fires) have the potential to reverse restoration gains. For example, subtidal environments home to hard corals and sponges may require a century or longer to recover, whereas wetland ecosystems, like salt marshes and mangroves, could recover within a few decades (Lotze et al., 2006; Bekkby et al., 2020; Saunders et al., 2020). K-selected taxa with longer life spans, such as whales, seals, sea turtles, and birds, may require several decades to recover (30–100 years) (Lotze et al., 2011), but some fish and invertebrates can recover as quickly as 5–10 years after being depleted (McLean et al., 2018; Yim et al., 2020). Recognizing that these factors can affect the trajectories of population growth and ecosystem recovery is essential for setting achievable and effective ABC goals in line with the 30x30 target.

The potential socio-economic advantages borne from successful marine restoration projects offer strong and compelling incentives for investment. However, the time an ecosystem requires to recover does not necessarily match the time frame expected for socio-economic growth, which can be tracked by macroeconomic indicators like the Gross Domestic Product, the GINI index, as well as local growth indicators like declines in unemployment, increases in minimum wage, and public satisfaction polls. Additional indicators that assess human well-being across multiple dimensions (Biedenweg et al., 2016; Breslow et al., 2016; Mascia et al., 2017; Kaplan-Hallam and Bennett, 2018; Gill et al., 2019) can also be used to help improve management and restoration projects.

Without a comprehensive approach to implementing ABC protections that invest in both long-term ecological recovery and near-term socio-economic well-being, measures can feel socially ‘out-of-touch’ and are likely to fail (Lubchenco et al., 2020). Specifically, ABC that lack mechanisms promoting socio-economic stability and equitable access alongside environmental reforms tend to fall short of their biodiversity objectives by overlooking drivers of biodiversity loss, such as social inequality, political instability, unchecked resource consumption, among others (Scoones et al., 2020; Obura et al., 2023). This disconnects between environmental and economic goals has stymied meaningful conservation progress worldwide, as reflected in our inability to meet global conservation targets like the Aichi Target or the forthcoming 30x30 target set by the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework (Maxwell et al., 2020; Adams et al., 2004).

While MPpA evokes the concept of ‘Marine Protected Areas’ – which emphasizes safeguarding the marine environment – it shifts the focus to a broader objective: overall community prosperity. This semantic shift highlights the interconnectedness of ecological and socio-economic outcomes and promotes a more inclusive approach that accommodates a wide range of stakeholder interests and needs. Stakeholders include economic sectors reliant on extractive and non-extractive uses, as well as Indigenous peoples, local communities and other underserved groups. Their stewardship of lands and waters, often suppressed for centuries due to colonization, is increasingly recognized as vital for sustainable resource management (Thornton and Scheer, 2012; von der Porten et al., 2019; Winter et al., 2023).

We have carefully selected the term ‘Marine Prosperity Areas’ to convey a specific narrative, wherein humans and non-humans can thrive. Like others, we recognize the power of narrative and storytelling as tools for advancing shared, fundamental ideals that shape our perception, decisions, and understanding of the world (Louder and Wyborn, 2020). Narratives connect events, actors, and actions in a temporal and logical sequence, acting as cohesive elements for collaborative governance (Fuhse, 2009; Ingram et al., 2014; Koch et al., 2021). Compelling and meaningful narratives also have the power to motivate action, making them crucial for transformative sustainability (Veland et al., 2018; Chabay et al., 2019; Koch et al., 2023). As such, multiple narratives allow for unprecedented listening, embracing peoples’ differences, diversity, and democratic pluralism (Koch et al., 2023) in defining local prosperity and addressing social equity and justice in ocean conservation (Lorimer, 2017; Bennett, 2022), which have been shown to significantly enhance the social outcomes of conservation measures as they foster inclusivity, equity, and collaborative governance (Jupiter et al., 2014; Di Franco et al., 2020; Quintana et al., 2021). Therefore, adopting a multi-narrative and multi-stakeholder perspective, which is at the basis of the MPpA concept, helps explore and define the roles of and interactions between stakeholders, including communities, markets, state entities, and third-sector organizations to ensure the success of ABC projects (Avelino and Wittmayer, 2016).

The MPpAs concept, depicted in Figure 1 , aims to align ecological restoration and human well-being within a long-term perspective required by the ecological recovery time (minimum 10 years). It illustrates recovery times for marine life observed in successful conservation projects and incorporates the human dimension. At its core, the MPpA concept ( Figure 1 right) recognizes the importance of well-managed and/or fully protected marine areas for the restoration and long-term sustainability of marine ecosystems. The recovery trajectory (blue line) is a lengthy non-linear journey that requires consistent effort in which socio-economic processes need to be acknowledged to ensure they also improve. When ABCs are established, it usually means that marine biodiversity and ecological functions are in some type of altered states; but as time progresses, some species begin to rebound and signs of recovery start to show (partially recovered) (Yim et al., 2020). When ecosystems demonstrate substantial improvements in structure and function (typically after about a decade of protection) (Babcock et al., 2010), they are considered fairly recovered. For example, a sandy bottom consistently exhibiting colonizing algae or seagrass with low densities of pioneering species indicate the initial stages of recovery. Ecosystems in this stage are fragile and lack the resiliency needed to bounce back or fight significant environmental stressors (e.g., Díez et al., 2014; Hillebrand and Kunze, 2020). On the other side of the recovery spectrum are the fully recovered ecosystems exhibiting robust biodiversity, ecological resilience, and sustainable functioning. A thriving seagrass meadow with a resident population of herbivores to keep it in check, mollusks and worms burrowing in the sand helping to create microhabitat for smaller species, and predators visiting the meadow to rest, feed or reproduce while it helps minimize the impact of a storm’s surge, all signal a fully functioning ecosystem. Long timescales required for the ecological recovery of marine ecosystems are supported by Indigenous ecological knowledge (Taylor et al., 2011; Eckert et al., 2018; Ramadani et al., 2023).

The MPpA concept articulates three interlinked phases, each addressing progressive stages of socio-economic change that facilitate the adaptation to the long-term scale of ecological recovery ( Figure 1 left). To ensure effectiveness, MPpAs are structured around nine foundational elements, which, according to a literature review (Supplemental Material) and to the success factors identified in three case studies of effective ABC conservation in the Gulf of California, represent the key leverage points for facilitating a socio-economic shift that aligns with the ecological outcomes of restoration and conservation measures. These leverage points, referred to as ‘Pillars of Intervention,’ underpin the three phases that characterize the establishment of an MPpA:

To operationalize the ‘Marine Prosperity Areas’ concept, we defined an adaptive and participatory ‘MPpA Framework’ that allows incremental social, economic, and cultural benefits for people to occur through enhanced marine protection. In doing so, the framework achieves two things: (1) paves the way for a transition towards a sustainable blue economy that can be scaled to broader geographic scales, and (2) helps build interconnectedness between MPpAs at a regional scale, facilitating transboundary management. Figure 2 is a graphic representation of the notion that prosperity embraces the idea that “people value, and have reason to value, nature in line with the common good” (Macqueen et al., 2020), and highlights the need for businesses to contribute to local prosperity through community-oriented practices, democratic governance, and financial security (Avelino and Wittmayer, 2016; Bó et al., 2022; Zhu et al., 2023), and how the steps of the framework are interconnected among them. Each phase in the framework is reinforced with Key Actions paired with rigorous environmental and socio-economic monitoring ( Table 1 ), through which data is collected and evaluated to track the MPpA’s progress and impacts (Gill et al., 2024).

When implementing the MPpA Framework, the process begins with ‘Community Engagement and Co-design,’ when diverse groups are convened to coalesce around shared socio-economic, ecological and cultural goals ( Figure 2 ). This approach enables vision-driven planning that promotes both human prosperity and marine conservation, while proactively addressing diverse perspectives and needs to minimize potential conflicts. During the second stage, ‘Capacity-building, Governance, and Infrastructure,’ special attention is given to capacity-building, developing robust governance structures and securing infrastructure necessary for effective management. The third phase, ‘Co-management, Enforcement, and Monitoring,’ aims to address operational activities, including enforcement and monitoring. This creates a dynamic management system that involves setting, assessing, respecting and improving shared goals to ensure sustainable outcomes. The framework is highly sensitive to the local context, allowing it to be tailored to the specific aspirations of each community involved.

While the three phases described above refer to on-the-groundwork, it is important to have an overarching strategy to secure the necessary funding and investments for each individual MPpA and the network. This involves engaging stakeholders focusing on financing and investments that can unlock synergistic effects and help identify leverage points, feedback loops and drivers of self-organization (Hofstetter, 2020) within the MPpAs framework. These interactions are necessary while economic transitions take place in the community and can also help determine how risks and rewards are shared. Investors can use the pillars of intervention and key actions to assess progress and establish accountability in terms of impact on ecosystem resilience and socio-economic inclusiveness (Clarkin and Cangioni, 2016).

MPpAs offer opportunities for systemic change via long-term strategic planning, monitoring and diverse financial investments. The framework described above employs a multi-scalar and multi-level approach and integrates insights from natural sciences, conservation, social sciences, economics, and fields such as leadership and negotiation, all viewed through the lens of ‘systems thinking’ to drive transformation (Jacob et al., 2020). It purposely targets governance and technological changes to steer complex systems toward normative goals, bolstering human organization and potential for collective action.

This approach is designed to be participative and adaptable to a community’s unique needs and ambitions, providing a scalable and standardized methodology in which communities define their vision for prosperity and play a central role in the management and implementation of any MPpA. Stakeholders collaboratively define conservation goals, design strategies, and create action plans. This helps builds trust, promotes equity by including marginalized groups, and balances competing interests through early dialogue, reducing potential conflicts during implementation (Chuenpagdee et al., 2013; Koch et al., 2023).

By connecting local actions to a broader network of MPpAs, the framework aims to amplify ecological outcomes and strengthen community capacities, enhancing their political influence over regional issues and threats. The regional scope of the network also addresses transboundary management challenges and facilitates collaborative governance and conservation of natural resources beyond political or geographical boundaries, as seen at the state, federal, and municipal levels in the Gulf of California. Its inherent flexibility in defining shared visions and goals across socio-economic, cultural, and ecological dimensions allows an MPpA to make use of a portfolio of interventions aimed at protecting marine ecosystems and fostering prosperity in local communities.

Strong and effective governance is essential for resolving conflicts in marine resource management (Parlee and Wiber, 2018) as it requires cross-sectoral coordination, active engagement of local communities, transboundary collaboration, and adherence to key governance principles (Bellanger et al., 2020). These elements are central to the framework’s design, ensuring that governance structures are inclusive, adaptable, and capable of addressing complex challenges. Like any other framework where outcomes require long periods of time to materialize, perhaps the biggest challenge is securing necessary funding throughout the implementation process. During the implementation, each phase should be well-financed and supported by strong partnerships to ensure that interventions can be implemented. This becomes especially important as the community’s social network, its economy and even its governance systems begin to shift and transform, giving way to new needs. This constant transitioning between states and the framework’s stages will involve deploying capital to generate societal outcomes that are aligned with marine ecosystem recovery.

The ABC was implemented 29 years ago (1995), following a community-driven initiative to address the overfishing that had depleted local fish stocks, when residents sought federal support to protect their marine resources through the creation of a National Park. Located on the southeast of the Baja California Peninsula, the community of Cabo Pulmo (CPNP) has met at least six of the nine pillars of intervention of the MPpA framework. Two characteristics that have positioned this MPA as an example are its local leadership (Pillar: Conservation Leadership) and the community’s active participation (Pillar: Community Engagement) throughout the planning, design and implementation phases. The community’s diverse network of collaborators and supporters (Pillar: Strategic Alliances) have been instrumental in socio-political mobilization which has been crucial to counter coastal developments that threaten to modify coastal ecosystems surrounding CPNP. Without losing sight of their definition of well-being (Pillar: Community Well-being), Cabo Pulmo has successfully linked local issues with broader policy concerns, thus influencing and sustaining an adaptive environmental governance (Pillar: Strong Governance) that contributes to CPNP’s ecological and social resilience.

After 10 years (1999–2009), fish biomass increased 463% increase (Aburto-Oropeza et al., 2011), which has sustained the local economic transition from fishing to tourism (Leslie et al., 2013). Today, CPNP is among the most popular diving destinations worldwide, generating $8 Million USD a year and supports regional economic activities that benefits from this small reserve’s spillover (CONANP-GIZ, 2017). In almost 30 years, CPNP has become a benchmark for global conservation efforts, so scientists work with the community and the Park’s authorities to consistently monitor marine environments within and around the park’s boundaries (Pillar: Effective Enforcement) (Langle-Flores et al., 2017).

Despite the conservation success achieved, CPNP still faces significant social challenges, including demographic shifts with rising tourism, tensions between locals and expatriates, increased real estate speculation, and governance issues such as underfunding and limited enforcement (Anderson, 2019). While economic support for marine issues and research has been secured through public and private programs, long-term funding to strengthen the community’s governance structure, public infrastructure, capacity building and diversifying the local economy have been scarce. These investments are essential to foster a strong and resilient community capable of addressing emerging threats and needs, but require consistent collaboration with public authorities which can be difficult to sustain without a stable governance system.

In 2011, in a small community in La Paz, Baja California Sur, a group of fishermen set out to build a collaborative relationship with authorities to design and implement fisheries regulations and management strategies that could revive their once thriving fisheries. Fourteen years after the first meeting, El Manglito, one of the last-standing fishing neighborhoods in La Paz, has gone through at least five pillars of intervention. Fishers began by self-organizing and reached a collective agreement to restore the bay (Pillars: Community Engagement and Conservation Leadership) to provide a healthy ecosystem for species to repopulate. Supported by researchers and the local NGO Noroeste Sustentable (Pillar: Strategic Alliances), funding was secured for the first activities which focused on recovering pen shell (Atrina maura) and Catarina clam populations through comprehensive evaluations (Corpuz et al., 2014; Palacios-Abrantes et al., 2018), beach and seabed clean-up campaigns, (Pillar: Strong Governance) and participatory surveillance activities (Pillar: Effective Enforcement).

Encouraged by the scallop’s population recovery, the community decided to form the SPR Fishermen’s Organization Rescuing the Ensenada (OPRE for its initials in Spanish) to secure fishing property rights within the bay, access public and private funding to support their organization, as well as improve their income through other fishery related products. By July 2017, OPRE had secured a 2,048-hectare fishing concession for 11 bivalve species, and scallop fishing resumed with specific management rules like size restrictions and bank-specific catch quotas. However, given the current environmental and socio-economic context in which this small fishing community lives, fishing cannot fully meet their economic needs and new revenue-generating options have been identified. Today, OPRE has ventured into oyster aquaculture, mussel fishing and nature tourism and are consistently assessing and optimizing their productive processes to ensure profitability without compromising economic and environmental sustainability (Pillar: Community Well-being).

Unfortunately, in 2019, an invasive tunicate (Distaplia stylifera) invaded the bay killing thousands of scallops compromising the health of the population and therefore OPRE’s income (Moreno-Dávila, 2022). Environmental stressors like these are hard to predict and, depending on the issue at hand, reversing negative impacts can be time consuming with high costs usually associated. Nevertheless, El Manglito continues to strengthen their network of collaborators and search for opportunities to invest in their community and business ventures. If OPRE can secure long-term funding, their efforts to restore healthy environmental conditions and diversify their community’s income will undoubtedly bring them one step closer to their goals for a thriving community.

The ABC was implemented six years ago (2018) and has been through four MPpA’s pillars of intervention. Located in Sinaloa, on Santa María Bay, La Reforma is home to about 6,600 residents whose livelihoods primarily depend on fishing. Their process began when the community self-organized as a collaborative network driven by the need to recover the overfished resources on which they depend (Pillar: Community Well-being). The intervention strategy is anchored on economic enhancement, communal cohesion and environmental sustainability, all aiming to empower individuals as agents of prosperity and change (Pillar: Conservation Leadership). Particularly, it placed a strong emphasis on education and leadership training, as well as empowering women and enhancing their economic independence.

The emphasis on capacity building has yielded positive results that have impacted the community’s governance and well-being (Pillar: Community Well-being). Most notably, the first women’s oyster-farming cooperative was established in 2023 and produced over 3 million oyster seeds, and two cohorts of 40 men and women (80 total) have completed training in leadership and environmental stewardship. Additionally, approximately 1,800 have participated in environmental education and entrepreneurship workshops. Collectively, these grassroots efforts are contributing to strengthening the community’s resiliency and governance structure (Pilar: Strong Governance) and they are proud of the positive changes and steps they have taken to improve their livelihoods and well-being, but they still face stark inequalities and persistent social challenges common in Mexico’s fishing and aquaculture sectors for which long-term financing is needed to guarantee efforts are not abandoned.

The MPpAs concept creates a space where hopeful and inclusive engagement occurs, prioritizes marginalized voices and offers flexibility to adapt to local contexts. The three examples discussed above share the same origin: faced with an environmental crisis, each process was catalyzed by a collective willingness to redefine prosperity in the context of a healthy environment. However, the paths taken have been significantly different because of their individual reality, history and opportunities. While all have strong ties to fishing, Cabo Pulmo’s reefs and clear water undoubtedly created opportunities for the community to venture into tourism that are simply not possible for La Reforma and El Manglito. However, unlike Cabo Pulmo, these communities have been able to keep their fishing traditions by diversifying their activities and integrating ecosystem management tools to recover lost biodiversity while sustaining income. The strategy designed by each community reflects their needs, priorities and opportunities and despite these differences, they are moving towards the same goal.

The pillars of intervention described represent milestones that allow an MPpA to assess progress. Aside from Pillar I, Community Engagement, there is no predefined order in which a community must achieve them, they do they expire, nor are they mutually exclusive. For example, we recognize that strong governance can facilitate progress and allow for leadership, alliances and collaborative management to stand out. However, each pillar operates in different time scales. Convening meetings, setting up monitoring or enforcement programs and even finding seed funding can happen in a time scale of weeks or months; but building a governance system where leaderships are established, strategic alliances are built requires a longer timeline. Because each of the analyzed MPpA case studies began under very different contexts, their paths not only exemplify the flexibility of the model but provide a snapshot of community transformations over time. Building on the pillars already achieved, addressing the remaining ones would further enhance the effectiveness and resilience of the analyzed case studies, providing additional benefits to their ongoing community transformations.

How each Pillar of Intervention is specifically defined will also vary depending on the MPpA. While we provide general definitions or concepts, the MPpA model allows for individual and specific definitions to be defined by participating stakeholders. The model also allows for modifications as we acknowledge an MPpA’s right to change their view, goals and priorities. The Community Well-being pillar is perhaps the best example of something that will be consistently changing as goals are met and milestones reached. How we define something depends on the current context and on the source of any source of urgency. When fishers from El Manglito first came together, they were unable to envision anything beyond a modest recovery of the bay’s ecosystems. Expectations for improvements in community well-being were probably low, but as the benefits of their hard work began to materialize, they saw themselves needing to revisit their initial definitions and goals. Success empowers people and allows them not only to be more daring, but to push goals farther into the future, thus creating a sense of long-term commitment.

How often stakeholders need to adapt and adjust during or after interventions is not a sign of how fast they will achieve their goals. The MPpA model does not dictate pace, but rather advocates for dialogue, transparency and consistent self-evaluation to provide necessary feedback that ensure basic needs are met and rights are guaranteed while progress is maintained. Reframing priorities will help build trust among stakeholders and the model provides the necessary structure to avoid losing sight of goals. La Reforma presents a good example of this by showing how, although fishing is the main source of income, they are prioritizing education and training and see this as a necessary investment that will help set the foundation for a new attitude towards fisheries management and ecosystem conservation.

But regardless of individual timelines, the one pillar of intervention that seems to be the most challenging is the one related to sustainable funding. All three MPpA case studies discussed benefitted from initial seed money or funding through small grants aimed at implementing short-term projects. However, the MPpA framework requires a shift from reactive to strategic portfolio paradigms and recognizes the interconnectedness and complexity of socio-technical systems. Businesses within MPpAs should operate under principles that empower local families and communities to make decisions about the management and use of marine and coastal ecosystems, securing tenure rights, ocean concessions, and access to markets and technology that bolster environmental sustainability. In this way, the framework facilitates the deliberate composition and governance of investments to unlock transformational effects, ultimately contributing to long-term wealth preservation and holistic sustainability.

Visions including long-term prosperity plans could make large-scale investments and new forms of finance more accessible, bridging the funding gap for marine conservation, especially in developing countries (Pascal et al., 2021). Examples of such investments include infrastructure projects, technology start-ups, and public subsidy schemes. Blended finance, leveraging public or philanthropic capital, and collaborative design with policymakers can further attract climate finance and support sustainable economic activities (Ganbat et al., 2016). Having strategic portfolios will allow investors to consider asset synergies and leverage positive correlations to drive change while generating financial returns (Hofstetter, 2020). Innovation in financial solutions and policy adjustments is essential to support sustainable practices within MPpAs and the broader blue economy. The long-term plan is not only to safeguard ecosystem health but to also ensure the prosperity of human systems.