Madeira: scientists study how marine protection is restoring ocean life

Nearly 200 scientists are studying the marine environment off Madeira's Desertas Islands, assessing ecosystem health and how ocean protection can safeguard biodiversity and tackle climate change. A ray glides over the seabed off the Desertas Islands in Madeira. The footage is being analysed by scientists trying to understand how marine protection is affecting ocean life. Juan Mayorga, a marine biologist with National Geographic’s Pristine Seas initiative, is part of an expedition bringing together around 200 scientists to study the archipelago’s marine environment. "It’s a good day when we see animals like this!" says the Colombian researcher, who studies underwater images to measure the impact of marine protection. The scientists, on board around 15 vessels, are surveying marine life across the archipelago, assessing the health of its ecosystems and exploring how they can better withstand climate change. "As we protect this place, year after year, the fish get bigger and produce more and more offspring. That’s protection working," stresses marine biologist Juan Mayorga, who works for the marine conservation initiative run by the National Geographic Society. The flagship of the expedition is the 70-metre sailing ship Santa Maria Manuela, which has brought researchers from different parts of the world to the Desertas Islands, a group of three uninhabited rocky islets about 40 kilometres southeast of Madeira. Aboard vessels such as the Santa Maria Manuela, the team uses baited underwater cameras mounted on metal frames to attract and film fish at depths of between 40 and 50 metres. The aim is to compare two areas: the southern side of the Desertas Islands, where fishing is completely banned, and the northern side, where it is still allowed in some zones. "We’re going to put these cameras in these protected marine areas and then also in zones where there is fishing, and we’re going to compare the two," explains Jennifer Caselle, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The research goes beyond images. The scientists also collect water samples to identify traces of fish DNA from species that may escape the cameras. On the Desertas Islands, they also measure rock temperatures in the intertidal zone to study the effects of heat on marine organisms and help understand how biodiversity may change as the planet warms. Studying the response to global warming Rui Seabra, a 44-year-old researcher from the University of Porto, attaches temperature sensors to rocks exposed at low tide along a small cove. He wants to understand how crustaceans and sponges behave in sunny and shaded areas, information that could help scientists predict how marine biodiversity will respond to rising temperatures. "We need to understand how biodiversity will be redistributed, which species will migrate where, what conditions exist here, how they will change and which species we expect to find here in the future," he explains. The expedition comes at a time when the urgency of protecting marine ecosystems is high on the international agenda. Emanuel Gonçalves, the expedition leader and scientific director of the Oceano Azul Foundation, acknowledges the importance of international meetings such as the 17th COP on biodiversity, taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, in setting political priorities. However, he points out that fieldwork cannot wait for political decisions. "We cannot wait. And that’s what science is telling us as well. This emergency for action does not allow us to sit back and wait for decisions that sometimes take decades to be made," he says. Madeira has long been a pioneer in marine conservation. The archipelago includes the main island of Madeira, the beach destination of Porto Santo, the Desertas Islands and the remote Selvagens Islands. In 1971 the authorities created a reserve around the Selvagens Islands to protect Cory’s shearwaters, seabirds found around Madeira and other Atlantic islands. Expanded in 2022, the reserve now covers around 2,600 square kilometres, making it the largest marine protected area in the North Atlantic. Another reserve set up around the Desertas Islands in the early 1990s helped a colony of Mediterranean monk seals, one of Europe’s most endangered marine mammals, grow from just eight animals to 31.