Azores’ MPA expansion: A systemic shift in North Atlantic ocean governance amid colonial legacies and extractive pressures
Original framing: “Creating the North Atlantic’s largest MPA network: Interview with Azores President José Manuel Bolieiro” — bing news
The original framing omits the colonial history of the Azores as a strategic resource hub for European empires, the role of EU fisheries policies in depleting local fish stocks, and the marginalization of Azorean fishers and Indigenous communities (e.g., Mbyá Guarani or Canarian Indigenous groups) in decision-making. It also neglects historical parallels like the failure of top-down MPAs in the Caribbean or the Pacific, where Indigenous-led conservation models proved more effective. Additionally, the piece ignores the geopolitical tensions over marine genetic resources and the extractive industries (e.g., deep-sea mining) that MPAs are meant to offset.
Medium structural omission detected in mainstream coverage.
The narrative is produced by Mongabay, an environmental journalism outlet with ties to Western conservation NGOs and funders, for an audience of global environmental policymakers and donors. The framing serves the interests of state actors like Portugal and the EU, who leverage MPAs to legitimize continued deep-sea mining and industrial fishing lobbies, while obscuring the complicity of these institutions in historical and ongoing ecological degradation. Indigenous and local fishers’ knowledge is sidelined in favor of technocratic solutions that prioritize market-based conservation.
Azorean small-scale fishers, particularly women and youth, are systematically excluded from MPA decision-making, despite their disproportionate reliance on marine resources. The narrative centers the Azores’ president and Western conservation NGOs, erasing the voices of those most affected by the MPAs. Globally, marginalized coastal communities—such as the Miskito in Nicaragua or the Sama-Bajau in Southeast Asia—have been displaced by conservation projects that prioritize biodiversity over livelihoods. The Azores’ model risks repeating this pattern unless it adopts participatory frameworks.
The Azores’ MPA expansion is a microcosm of global conservation’s contradictions: a progressive policy that risks reinforcing extractive structures unless it confronts colonial legacies and centers marginalized voices.