Navigator includes areas dedicated to the protection of marine life and the conservation of habitats in saltwater and coastal zones. It mainly includes Area Based Management Tools (ABMTs) with verified regulations and clearly defined boundaries—ensuring alignment with existing commercial and recreational fishing rules.
Navigator is the most comprehensive platform of place-based marine regulations and includes ABMTs not included in other global datasets. Beyond Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), Navigator incorporates other ABMTs that support marine conservation where applicable:
- Fisheries management areas (FMAs) included for select countries — see red-outlined regions in map or this list for reference
- Other Effective Conservation Measures (OECMs)
- Water quality protection zones
- Speed restriction zones for marine mammal protection
- Military closures and vessel traffic areas—only when they involve some form of extraction management
Note: China is the only exception; only GPS points were available rather than full boundary data.
Version 2 (V2) of the Navigator dataset features legal classifications (prohibited, restricted, allowed, N/A or unknown) for 11 additional fishing gears and methods and 1 additional marine activity, compared to Version 1 (V1). It also distinguishes between primary sites and their associated subzones for more detailed spatial management insights and includes change-tracking fields to highlight how regulations and boundaries have evolved from V1 to V2. A full list of attributes available in each data version is available here.
Where protected areas overlap, Navigator displays the highest level of protection. Users can click anywhere on the map to identify the marine managed areas at that location, along with their corresponding rules and restrictions.
To learn more about how Navigator was developed, see our Methodology.
