France officially protects 33% of its waters. Strictly protected: 1.6%. The gap between these two figures says everything you need to know about the true state of global marine conservation.

In 2026, the French government is preparing to raise its objective for marine protected areas, following the commitments made at the Montreal COP15 biodiversity conference in 2022. The ambition is real. But a report from the Smithsonian Institution and work consolidated by the Foundation for Biodiversity Research raises a question that official announcements sidestep: what’s the point of drawing perimeters on a map if no one can monitor what’s inside?

The Essentials

France is preparing to expand its marine protected areas to meet the targets set by the Kunming-Montreal agreement, which aims for 30% of the oceans protected by 2030. But with only 1.6% of its waters under strict protection, France illustrates a global trend: the accumulation of “paper parks,” zones officially protected but lacking effective surveillance means. Scientific studies show that a small well-managed area produces more ecological results than a large uncontrolled zone. The survival of fish stocks by 2050 depends less on advertised area than on the effectiveness of protection in zones of high ecological value. The real leverage is as much political as technical: deciding where to concentrate resources and owning that decision.

Protecting 30% of the Oceans: An Objective That Rings Hollow Without Means

The Kunming-Montreal agreement signed in December 2022 set a course: protect 30% of land and seas by 2030. The formula quickly acquired the status of an obvious truth in diplomatic forums. It’s convenient, memorable, difficult to contest. It is also insufficient on its own.

Because marine protection is not a binary variable. Between an officially designated zone and an effectively managed zone, there exists a chasm that national statistics do not bridge. Most official indicators aggregate highly heterogeneous categories: integral reserves where fishing is prohibited, marine natural parks where it is simply regulated, protection zones where commercial uses remain authorized under conditions. Putting all this in the same counter amounts to adding incomparable ecological realities.

France is a textbook case. With its overseas territories, it holds the world’s second-largest exclusive economic zone, nearly 11 million square kilometers. This colossal perimeter gives it a particular responsibility and real capacity for influence in international negotiations. And the country has indeed made progress: according to official French government data, France has covered 33% of its waters with marine protected areas since February 2022, a threshold reached after expanding the nature reserve of the French Southern Territories. But this statistical performance evaporates upon closer inspection. Strict protection—that which actually forbids extractive activities and has surveillance means—covers only 1.6% of French waters. The bulk of the rest falls under what marine biologists call “paper parks”: zones that exist in texts, rarely in fact.

What Marine Biology Knows That Diplomacy Ignores

The distinction between nominal and effective protection is not a bureaucratic quarrel. It has measurable consequences for biodiversity.

Research published in Science and PNAS on marine reserves worldwide consistently shows the same result: strictly protected and well-monitored zones harbor significantly higher fish densities than partially protected or unmonitored zones. In some Mediterranean integral reserves, fish biomass is up to ten times higher than outside. The Cerbère-Banyuls marine nature reserve, one of France’s oldest, illustrates this effect: decades of strict protection have allowed the reconstitution of grouper and gilt-head bream populations that have gradually recolonized adjacent zones.

This spillover phenomenon, called the “reserve effect,” is well documented. A strictly protected zone doesn’t merely preserve what it contains: it exports larvae, juveniles, and adults to neighboring waters, benefiting local fishers operating at its periphery. It’s the apparent paradox of strict marine conservation: by banning fishing over a limited area, it can increase catches over a larger area.

This mechanism has a direct implication for the debate on 30% targets. If one chooses to strictly protect 10% of zones of high ecological value, you probably obtain more real biological results than if you declare 30% of weakly regulated zones. Advertised area is not the right indicator. Effectiveness, location, and surveillance means are.

“Paper Parks”: A Global Problem France Shares

The phenomenon is not uniquely French. Work from the Smithsonian Institution and other scientific institutions documents its prevalence on a global scale. Among all declared marine protected areas, only a minority have active management plans, surveillance personnel, and operational budgets. Many exist as legal categories with no concrete translation on the water.

The causes are structural. Creating a marine protected area is a relatively inexpensive political act: it merely requires a decree, a perimeter, and a press release. Managing it demands time, money, staff, partnerships with local communities, scientific monitoring protocols. For states wanting to display progress cheaply in international negotiations, designation without management is an attractive solution. It allows them to check the box without committing resources.

In France, the situation varies significantly by territory. Réunion, Mayotte, French Guiana, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia represent the bulk of the French EEZ. These territories are ecologically among the richest in the world, but they are also the most remote from surveillance resources. Patrolling the immensity of the South Pacific with the means of overseas collectivities is a perilous exercise. French Polynesia created one of the world’s largest marine protection zones in 2002, covering 5 million square kilometers. Means of effective control remain inversely proportional to this area.

The United Nations Conference on the Ocean in Nice: Real Stakes

In June 2025, Nice hosted the United Nations Conference on the Ocean. France displayed its commitment to the Kunming-Montreal targets and presented new protection measures. The event was an opportunity for real progress: several states announced the creation of protected areas, and discussions on the High Seas Treaty, adopted in 2023, advanced—the treaty having not yet reached the 60 ratifications necessary for entry into force at that time. This occurred on January 17, 2026.

This treaty deserves attention. For decades, the high seas, representing 64% of ocean area, were a lawless zone where the only applicable rules were those of freedom of navigation and fishing. The 2023 treaty, negotiated under United Nations auspices after twenty years of discussion, creates for the first time a legal framework allowing marine protected areas to be created on the high seas, beyond national EEZs. It’s a significant institutional advance. But the treaty does not provide dedicated financing mechanisms or permanent surveillance structures. It relies on the good will of member states.

The financing question is central. The Global Environment Facility and various bilateral mechanisms support the creation of protected areas in developing countries, but amounts remain far below estimated needs. Studies from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the IUCN estimate that effective management of 30x30 targets would require several tens of billions of dollars annually worldwide. The commitments made in Nice remain far short of that figure.

What Really Works: Models to Consolidate

It would be inaccurate to conclude that nothing works. Several experiments allow us to identify replicable conditions for success.

The Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, have developed a co-management model where local fishers actively participate in monitoring protected zones. Result: reduced surveillance costs, strong social acceptability, and documented ecological results. In the Mediterranean, the Marine Protected Area of the Medes Islands in Catalonia has for thirty years produced a reserve effect measured by annual scientific monitoring: grouper density has increased by more than a factor of ten since the creation of the strict reserve in 1990.

France also has compelling examples. The national marine nature reserves, Cerbère-Banyuls, the Riou archipelago, are zones where strict protection has produced documented results. The Iroise Marine Natural Park, created in 2007, is regularly cited as a model of participatory governance involving fishers, scientists, and local authorities. These experiments show that well-designed protection is not the enemy of human activities: it can make them sustainable.

The question is therefore not choosing between ambition and realism. It’s knowing how to concentrate available resources on zones where impact will be maximal, while progressively building the management capacity needed to extend effective protection.

The 2050 Trajectory: The Fisheries Gamble Nobody Really Quantifies

The time dimension is what makes the debate on “paper parks” particularly urgent. Decisions made today on the location and level of protection of marine areas will have effects over several decades, and these effects are asymmetrical.

The FAO estimates that 34% of global fish stocks were being exploited at unsustainable levels in 2019, in continuous increase since the 1970s. If this trend continues, several major commercial stocks could reach collapse thresholds between 2040 and 2060. The term “collapse” has a precise definition in fisheries ecology: a stock is considered collapsed when its biomass falls below 10% of its unexploited level. Some stocks, like North Atlantic cod after the 1992 collapse, still struggle to reconstitute thirty years later, even with virtually no fishing. The tipping point exists, and it is not reversible on a human timescale.

Modeling published in Nature shows that strict protection covering 30% of areas of priority ecological importance would allow, under assumptions of effective management, stock reconstitution in the following decades and increased global fisheries yields over the long term. But this projection assumes real surveillance, enforced prohibitions, and ecosystems sufficiently intact to initiate reconstitution. “Paper parks” over 30% of the oceans would contribute nothing to this scenario.

The generational dimension of the challenge is direct. Generations entering the job market in the 2030s will inherit either oceans in recovery or impoverished oceans whose economic and nutritional effects will weigh on several billion people, particularly in developing coastal countries where marine protein represents an irreplaceable share of diet. This is not an abstract projection: it’s current data logic extended with its explicit assumptions.

France has a card to play in this landscape. With its EEZ covering tropical, Atlantic, and Pacific zones among the world’s richest in marine biodiversity, effective protection on its key zones would have an ecological impact disproportionate to its area. The budget of the French Biodiversity Agency and means allocated to marine area managers in overseas territories are the true barometer of French commitment. Area announcements come afterward.

Consolidate Before Expanding

The 30% objective is not bad. It creates useful political pressure, it forces governments to justify their track record, it structures international negotiations. But it’s incomplete as an operational compass.

The Smithsonian and the marine scientific community converge on a more precise recommendation: aim for 10% strict and effective protection before congratulating ourselves on 30% nominal coverage. This intermediate objective is achievable with existing resources if they’re concentrated on priority zones. It would produce measurable results within ten years. And it would create replicable models for subsequent stages.

For France, this translates concretely: identify zones of high ecological value in each overseas territory, guarantee strict protection there with corresponding surveillance means, and co-construct management with local communities to ensure acceptability and sustainability. The Mayotte Marine Natural Park, one of the planet’s best-preserved coral zones, is an obvious priority. The reefs of French Polynesia, which harbor irreplaceable endemic biodiversity, are another.

The Nice conference opened a political space. The question now is whether France will choose to fill it with additional hectares on paper, or with the means of protection that truly counts for the fish, corals, and fishers who depend on them.

Sources

  1. Foundation for Biodiversity Research / Vert.eco — Five questions to understand everything about marine protected areas
  2. FAO — The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022 (fao.org, biennial report)
  3. Smithsonian Institution — Marine Global Earth Observatory work on the effectiveness of marine protected areas (ocean.si.edu)
  4. IUCN — World Database on Protected Areas, WDPA (protectedplanet.net)
  5. Convention on Biological Diversity — Kunming-Montreal Agreement 2022 (cbd.int)
  6. United Nations — High Seas Treaty, BBNJ Agreement 2023 (un.org)
  7. Nature — Sala et al., “Protecting the global ocean for biodiversity, food and climate” (2021)
  8. Ministry of the Sea — French MPAs (33%)
  9. Touteleurope.eu / CNRS — Strict protection 1.6%
  10. CBD COP-15 — Official text Kunming-Montreal agreement
  11. Wikipedia / SHOM — French EEZ 10.2 million km²
  12. Wikipedia — BBNJ Treaty adopted June 2023, in force January 2026
  13. UN / DESA — UNOC3 in Nice, June 2025
  14. IFREMER — 34% fish stocks overexploited (FAO)
  15. Pew Charitable Trusts — 30x30 financing deficit
  16. Smithsonian STRI — MPA Guide (Science)
  17. Ministry of Ecology — ZPF label 63 sites, 14.8% target by 2026