This section on Conservation Priorities builds on the more usual complement of MPA selection principles and criteria to present some additional ones aimed specifically at enhancing the survival and recovery prospects for coral communities affected by climate-related mass bleaching. MPAs that incorporate likely bleaching-resistant and resilient reefs may provide effective refugia in the face of global change.

The section is intended to help MPA planners and managers to identify candidate coral reef conservation areas and to select ones from these that have good chances of resisting coral bleaching or recovering rapidly and fully from it.

Four basic steps are suggested for the systematic selection of resilient coral reefs for establishment as MPAs. These steps include the collection, analysis, and synthesis of data leading to the identification of candidate sites, followed by the application of criteria to select specific coral reef refugia for protection. This process is illustrated by a hypothetical example of GIS application.