The BlueDiagnosis, a tool for assessing the management of a marine protected area
Evaluating the management effectiveness of your marine protected area (MPA) is the very first step towards more sustainability in your conservation actions.
BlueDiagnosis is a tool developed by BlueSeeds for this purpose. It gives an overall picture of the health of an MPA, from its management perspective, and identifies strengths and areas for improvement.
The BlueDiagnosis can be distinguished by its measure of the durability and sustainability of a MPA, rather than its impact. Its indicators are not just limited to conservation actions, but also include its internal organisation, collaborations, financial stability or openness to change.
How can the BlueDiagnosis help you?
Financial planning
A simple and quick assessment of your marine protected area
Built on BlueSeeds’ experience working in the field and with MPA managers, the BlueDiagnosis can be distinguished from other evaluation tools by the speed of the evaluation (around 1 hour) and the autonomy required for the evaluation, which can be done alone by the manager.
The assessment is simple. For each indicator, the evaluator may choose between two answers. Comments are added next to each answer.
An evalution based on 5 pillars of sustainable management
The BlueDiagnosis can also be distinguished by its measure of the durability and sustainability of a MPA, rather than its impact. This is reflected in its indicators that are not just limited to conservation actions, but also include its internal organisation, collaborations, financial stability or openness to change. In other words, the BlueDiagnosis seeks to evaluate a MPA globally and over the long term.
The BlueDiagnosis allows assessing the management effectiveness of a MPA following 5 main pillars of sustainability: Environment, Finance, Partnerships, Team and Innovation.
The manager evaluates the strengths or areas for improvement of their MPA for each of these pillars according to 3 categories of indicators: fondations, resilience and potential.
In fine: identify areas of improvement
Once the manager’s assessment is complete, the output is an evaluation of the management effectiveness summarised by a figure.
BlueSeeds then arranges a short appointment with the manager to talk about his/her answers and possible avenues of improvement.
This tool has proven multiple times to be a fruitful base for discussions, giving MPA managers a new perspective on their management practices and strategy.
They tested the BlueDiagnosis
