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We fully support any international body or framework that provides a global vision for the establishment of marine reserves. If any international organization takes MPAs up as a key issue, it can provide unifying ideals, principles, and moral support for the endeavor. Indeed, for waters outside the jurisdiction of coastal states, some form of binding international agreement would provide the most and perhaps only form of effective management (Molenaar 2004)
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The vast majority of nations have legislative and financial machinery that can be used to mandate and fund the creation of MPAs, something lacked by virtually all current international bodies. Also, most states have preexisting infrastructure related to land-based conservation areas that can be expanded and adapted to meet the needs of operating MPAs. For instance, the scope of existing enforcement agencies can be expanded to cover operational and enforcement needs of MPAs. In many cases, it may be effective to extend land-based protected areas offshore, thereby combining the operation of several different protected areas. In addition, the management and funding of such a combination can be explicitly handled by the existing management system for the land-based park. An entirely new system agency will not have need to be created and funded. This concept is already active in Italy's Baia and BaioloNational ParkBaiolo National Parks, which are land-based but have jurisdiction over nearby marine reserves (Consentino 2005). There are numerous other locations where such combinations are possible (consider, for example, the pairing of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts and the Cape Cod National Seashore) (Baumgardner 2005).
It is also true that many nations have currently operational systems of Marine Sanctuaries that could be expanded to meet a 10% goal. Continuing to using the United States as an example, comprehensive legislation such as the National Marine Sanctuaries Act already exists (16 United States Code § 1431). Although this is a very good beginning, such legislation does have significant room for improvement. In particular, the process for creating new Marine Sanctuaries needs to be streamlined, and less emphasis should be placed on the proving the benefits of reserves as compared with other management strategies (16 United States Code § 1431). In particular, the legislation also needs to be expanded to explicitly mandate and fund the creation of more reserves towards a 10% goal.
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