three dimensions: resource management, conflicts between rival countries, and tradeoffs between people's needs and the environment. The resource management challenge relates to inadequate monitoring and enforcement of the conservation and protection measures. Rivalries between neighboring countries relates to border disputes surrounding assignment of the LSMPAs. Usually LSMPAs involve multiple countries making up disparate adjoined geographic areas. Some countries might use LSMPAs as diplomatic leverage to pursue other advantages. Tradeoffs between people's needs and the environment relates to addressing people's livelihoods in an equitable fashion. The setting of protective areas can have negative effects on local fisheries and people's incomes. Capacity-enhancing fishery subsidies Capacity-enhancing subsidies have been provided to developing countries in order to make them more competitive with large fishing nations. But if these subsidies result in overfishing, undermining the ecological resilience of the resource, there will be no long-term benefits to the communities. Capacity-enhancing subsidies can only solve immediate poverty conditions for the moment. Monitoring of the impact of the subsidies is necessary to ensure that overfishing is not occurring. Also, strict agreements between countries are required since marine ecosystems cross national boundaries. The World Trade Organization is dedicated to implementing Target 6 of SDG 14 ("End subsidies contributing to overfishing") and discontinue fishery subsidies. The basis for this is that over 93 percent of the global fisheries stocks are already fully exploited. Impacts of COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had a positive impact on oceans since the human activity was lower and presented an opportunity for a sustainable recovery path. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the usage of single use plastics such as masks, sanitizer containers, gloves, and much more, in many places world-wide, specifically within Africa. It is estimated that 12 billion single-used face masks are being thrown out monthly which poses a large threat to human health and the surrounding environment, due to informal waste management in many African countries. Links with other SDGs Climate action (SDG 13) is used as a way of protecting the world's oceans. The increase in levels of greenhouse gases leading to changes in climate negatively affects the world's oceans and marine coastal communities. The resulting impacts of rising sea levels by 20 centimeters since the start of the 20th century and the increase of ocean acidity by 30% since the Industrial Revolution has contributed to the melting of ice sheets through the thermal expansion of sea water.