No-Take MPA

A no-take MPA is a marine protected area that bars all extractive use: no fishing, no aquaculture, no mineral or energy extraction, sometimes called a marine reserve or fully protected area. Removing fishing mortality lets biomass, body size, and reproductive output build inside the boundary, and the surplus exports across it as larval supply and adult spillover that can support adjacent fisheries. No-take zones are the strongest protection tier and the benchmark against which partial-protection MPAs are judged; many MPA networks place no-take cores inside multiple-use areas. Enforcement and clear boundaries determine whether the conservation gain materializes, since paper parks deliver little. They anchor the high-protection end of the 30x30 area target.