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What's in a name? Perhaps more than you bargained for, if you're in the field of MPAs. With practitioners seeming each month to cook up new terms for particular types of marine protected areas, staying up-to-date on the ever-expanding MPA dictionary has become somewhat challenging. Even at MPA News we sometimes can't remember the difference between a marine reserve, marine life reserve, and ecological reserve (or are they all the same...?).

To some extent, political prudence has driven the flourishing of terms describing MPAs. Several MPA experts, for example, have created new terms for "no-take zone" in an effort to put the idea of fish stock recovery in a more positive light for stakeholders, who are often fishermen. Rather than use a term with a potentially negative connotation like "no-take zone", the manager might use a term like "fish replenishment area", which focuses on the idea of rebuilding fish stocks instead of decreasing short-term harvests.

However, some critics have suggested that the growing thicket of terminology may be counterproductive to resource protection. Without a common understanding -- and, ideally, a legal basis -- for what these terms mean, they may end up meaning nothing, or everything. A marine protected area, sanctuary, or park established with no formal definition of these terms could in reality have no protection.

Storm waves of 30 feet (9 meters) in height destroyed as much as 80% of the coral cover in some areas of the Soufrière Marine Management Area (SMMA) off the Caribbean island of St. Lucia on November 17. The SMMA, profiled in a 1997 Coral Reefs (16:150) article for one of its reservesí remarkable enhancement of fish biomass, has now lost much of its marine life, according to early damage assessments.

SMMA Manager Kai Wulf said his staff has conducted daily dive assessments since the storm waves, which had been triggered by Hurricane Lenny but were not accompanied by abnormal wind or rain. Divers have attempted to repair coral damage where possible, including by re-attaching pieces.

Apo Island in the central Philippines has become nearly synonymous with the promise that MPAs seem to hold for improved fisheries management. Since the declaration in 1985 of a community-run, no-take marine sanctuary on a portion of the small island's coral reef, researchers have documented increased fish abundance inside and outside of the sanctuary's boundaries.

Remarkable for its fisheries-management success, Apo is in the news again, but this time for the makeover of its management system. An example since its inception of how community-based management could effectively protect marine resources, the marine sanctuary's management is now in the process of being turned over to a board with national, as well as local, government representatives. While local citizens will still have a say in the marine sanctuary's management, federal officials will play an increasingly important role.

The use of consensus-based decision-making to manage MPAs has grown in popularity over the last several years. With the goal of achieving increased "buy-in" from community stakeholders, MPA planners and managers are increasingly sharing some of their traditional decision-making powers and responsibilities with the community at large.

However, consensus processes are still a relatively new tool in MPA management. As with any new tool, the challenge now facing managers is to improve the tools' effectiveness, and to recognize when it is most useful. Experts on consensus-based decision-making caution that such processes may not always be appropriate for MPA management, and that planners and managers need to recognize when it is best to use them.