Results from the countries with sufficient threat data indicate that environmental degradation is causing the most impacts on the marine environment and MPAs in almost all the countries analysed, although the results are based on the perceptions of the informants (Burke et al. 2001).

Environmental degradation is the most prominent in Malaysia where coastal development and economic growth are rapid. Most of the activities that cause environmental degradation are land-based, notably siltation from river runoffs and coastal construction. Environmental degradation is less prominent in Vietnam and Indonesia where impacts from fishing activities appear more serious. Impacts from tourism are most prominent in Thailand and Indonesia. It is important to note that the relatively low tourism impact presented in the case of Malaysia is an underestimation, possibly due to the masking effect of environmental degradation, which is often related to tourism development.

In addition, the array and intensity of threats vary from one site to another site. For example, sites in Peninsula Malaysia suffer much more from development than those in Sabah where coral mining is a bigger problem.

II.A. Evaluation of Current Coverage by MPAs

The amount, completeness and accuracy of the data on MPAs vary among countries, depending on the amount of research and government interest in the subject. Protected areas data held by different agencies are not always consistent. The confusion is more notable in the case of MPAs primarily due to inconsistent and ambiguous definitions and terminologies for marine areas. Due to the inadequate inventory of the marine habitats and inaccessibility of available data, a number of MPAs in the database have no data input for habitat types, species and threats. Some of the MPAs lack information on their exact locations and most do not have a defined boundary or size, making quantitative coverage comparisons impossible. The present analysis of coverage by the MPA system is therefore restricted to only those sites with available information. The integration and interpretation of such data into useful and applicable information require caution.

II.B. National Coverage

Each of the nine ASEAN member countries has declared MPAs (see Figure i.2 and Table i.2). The Philippines has the longest official MPA listing although Indonesia probably has a similar total number if local MPAs not recognised by the central government are also counted. Brunei, Cambodia and Singapore, with very few MPAs (declared or proposed), have relatively short coastlines while Myanmar and Vietnam possess long coastlines and a variety of coral reefs and other marine ecosystems. These countries however, have major gaps in terms of MPA establishment on a national level.

II.C. Habitat Coverage

All the declared MPAs that have habitat data contain coral reefs. Meanwhile, seagrass and other marine habitats such as tidal mud flats and marshes, especially those that are not particularly important for birds, are inadequately covered by the MPA system. Documented records pertaining to seagrass, estuaries and tidal flats have been minimal. The low numbers do not only reflect the fact that these habitats are under-represented in the MPA system, but also indicate the general negligence of these habitats by scientists and conservationists. Some of these habitats, noticeably tidal flats that occur within the MPAs, may not have been recorded. Without figures on the actual areas of different habitats in individual MPAs and in the whole region, it would not be possible to come up with a quantitative answer as to how much each type of habitat is covered by the MPA system.

The initiatives by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) (WCMC, undated) and the WRI (Burke et al. 2002) provide a good start in estimating the coverage of the various marine habitats of the world.

II.D. Management Levels

Of the declared MPAs in the region that have entries for management levels on the questionnaires, 46% has no or very little management; 28% is under moderate management and only a handful is well managed. The proportions of unmanaged and poorly managed MPAs are expected to be higher because sites that do not have management data are unlikely to receive any management. The Global Representative System of Marine Protected Areas (Kelleher, Bleakley and Wells 1995) concluded that 90% of the MPAs in the East Asian Seas region generally fail to, or only partially, achieve management objectives. The implication is that the present MPA system is extremely ineffective in terms of marine biodiversity conservation and that an increase in the physical coverage of the MPA system alone will not improve marine conservation. Future actions should therefore strengthen the management of existing MPAs and establish new MPAs of high conservation priority. There are many different approaches to MPA management from top down, government-dominated approach to grass-root, community based management, depending on local circumstances, government capability, and local culture. Limited by human and financial resources, the prioritisation of sites and concentration of efforts become indispensable if conservation by MPA management is to be cost-effective.

Several international efforts can be invoked to strengthen and support various local and regional initiatives such as the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The recently established ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation (ARCBC) and the ASEAN working group of the World Commission on Marine Protected Areas (WCMPA) are good developments that could help facilitate activities to improve MPA planning and management in the region.

II.E. Identification of Gaps in the MPA System

The third sub-regional workshop held in Indonesia has rightly pointed out the obvious gap in the present MPA system of the region, namely western Sumatra and eastern Philippines where few MPAs and no priority sites have been identified (Cheung 1995). These two areas face intense oceanic actions and deep-sea trenches, and represent three distinct biogeographic divisions (13-VI-19, 13-VII and 13-IV) with very few MPAs in relation to the size of these divisions. Further examination of the system reveals that Myanmar (Divisions 10-III and 10-IV) is very much under-represented (see Map 7) because the country lacks field knowledge, conservation expertise and government interest. Finer gaps have been identified for individual countries. Some of the lesser known areas and MPA gaps, e.g. Sulu-Tawi-Tawi (SW Philippines) and eastern Indonesia, are the results of political or other security problems, which make them inaccessible to re- searchers. In terms of habitat coverage, the seagrass and coastal ecosystems without mangroves, are poorly represented by the existing MPA system. Description of ecosystem functional attributes (e.g. nesting site, spawning area, connectivity, and resilience to natural catastrophic stresses like El Niño) needs to be improved in the future.