Southern Argentina: The Patagonian Continental Shelf

MÓNICA NOEMÍ GIL; ERICA GIARRATANO; VICENTE BARROS; ALEJANDRO BORTOLUS; JORGE O. CODIGNOTTO; RICARDO DELFINO SCHENKE; GONGORA MARÍA EVA GÓNGORA; GUSTAVO LOVRICH; ALEJANDRO J. MONTI; MARCELA PASCUAL; ANDRÉS L. RIVAS; ALICIA TAGLIORETTE

World Seas: An Environmental Evaluation

Academic Press

Año: 2019; p. 783 - 812

Despite the advances in the last decades, there are still obstacles to the effective conservation of marine ecosystems on thePatagonian coast. Planning and investing in public services (provision of water and energy, disposal of solid and liquidwastes) and planning of coastal border occupancy is often behind the demographic development, causing negative environmentalimpacts on the coast. Regulations to prevent biological invasions arising from introductions require the implementationof more proactive policies. Experience in the management of MPA beyond the coastal zone (in the EEZ) is limited, andit is necessary to create new MPAs in relevant sites for conservation, as well as to reinforce and consolidate those alreadycreated to safeguard the continuity and integrity of the ecosystem services they provide and to move toward an effectivesystem of governance of MPA in the Argentine Sea.The marine flora and fauna that inhabits the Argentine Sea from 3 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles is of the publicdomain of the National State. Accordingly, the right to exploit it must arise from a fishing permit or from an administrativeconcession. From the coast to 200 miles there is an overlap of national and provincial jurisdictions and, in some municipalcases, municipal, provincial, national, and even international standards are applied. There is a need to better define theinstitutional roles and responsibilities of the relevant enforcement authorities, and the instruments for the enforcement and management of standards (techniques, guides to good environmental practices, and methodological and operationalguidelines). Effective implementation and sustainable financing mechanisms are required to improve the effectiveness ofmanagement. There are also deficiencies and gaps in the knowledge about these marine ecosystems, and on the developmentof technologies that influence and limit decision-making.