Related: see photos from marine protected areas

The Seychelles’ Saint Joseph Island, once a coconut plantation, is now a nature reserve with a marine protected area.

Protected elkhorn corals, brain corals and purple sea fans at Buck Island Reef National Monument, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

A large school of horse-eye jack fish swim in the Cabo Pulmo Nature Reserve in Baja, Mexico, created in 1995. Since the coral reef there was protected, marine life has rebounded to levels seen on pristine coral reefs.

Black margates school off the reef at Hol Chan Marine Reserve, the oldest in Belize. It was created in 1987.

An American crocodile swims in Cuba’s Gardens of the Queen National Marine Park.

A whitetip reef shark swims over regrown coral in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, in the Republic of Kiribati. Kiribati straddles the equator about midway between Australia and Hawaii.

Bottlenose dolphins swim in the Indian Ocean in the Ponta Do Oro Marine Reserve, Mozambique.

Rough seas in the south central Pacific Ocean. The Phoenix Island Protected Area is in the Republic of Kiribati.