Protected areas and coastal and ocean management in Mexico

No explicit "integrated coastal and ocean management" policy or program has been formally instituted to manage coastal and marine issues in Mexico. Nevertheless two existing environmental policy tools: ecological zoning programs and coastal and marine protected areas, which have incorporated interagency and multi-stakeholder participation within their design, are currently being used in lieu of such strategy. Coastal and marine protected areas in Mexico are the result of independent initiatives taken over the last 75 years and as a group cannot be characterized as the result of a systematic approach. Nevertheless Mexico's 55 coastal and marine protected areas currently with a valid legal decree, occupy 11,791,824 ha which represents 69% of Mexico's total protected area surface. Only 46% of these include marine ecosystems with a total of 3,577,527 ha with the remaining 8,216,194 ha consisting of coastal ecosystems. (See In press update.) (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.