Lessons Learned from the Marine Management Area Science Program: Insights for Global Conservation Science Programs

Drawing on experiences from the four regions and the overall conduct of the Marine Management Area Science (MMAS) program, this concluding article highlights emergent cross-cutting themes that affected MMAS programs across the regions, summarizes the important conservation outcomes of the MMAS program, and then discusses lessons gained from the actual process of conducting the MMAS program. Based on these insights, particularly the last section, this article concludes with recommendations for other conservation programs, specifically those that are global in scope and are science-based with a specific intent to apply that science to conservation action.