While Bora Bora has been considered a prime destination for vacationing in one of the world's most beautiful island chains, decades of tourism, including sports fishing, and an explosion of non-native people moving there have left a significant number of reef systems dead or depleted.

Coiba National Park and its Special Zone of Marine Protection are located in the Republic of Panama in the Gulf of Chiriqui, in the western sector of the country. The property safeguards Coiba Island, 38 smaller islands, and the surrounding marine area, submerged in the Tropical Eastern Pacific and contributing to the Tropical Eastern Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR). It serves as the final refuge for numerous threatened animals and serves as a crucial habitat for migratory species, which are essential for maintaining the ecological balance of the oceanic masses.

Stretching over 160 kilometers along the coast of East Kalimantan Province, the Derawan Archipelago is among the most biologically rich and intact marine ecosystems in all of Indonesia. Maratua Island, one of Global Conservation’s focus areas, not only faces illegal fishing but also annual plastic islands washing onto its shores from the Philippines, Malaysia, and as far away as China.

Palau's coral reefs are considered one of the seven Underwater Wonders of the World. They contain a menagerie of megafauna, from giant clams and manta rays to sea turtles, dugongs and fierce saltwater crocodiles that swim among hundreds of coral and sponge species.

In the 1980s in Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, fish stocks were forced into a precipitous decline. When Cabo Pulmo National Park was declared in 1995, 35% was preserved as a no-fishing area. After determined action by local families, the entire park was designated a no-fishing zone.

Turneffe is the largest atoll in the Mesoamerican Reef and the largest marine reserve in Belize. This Marine Protected Area, or MPA, is facing serious threats as the ten-year old TASA implements Global Conservation's Global Park Defense.