The MAC Certification system benefits conservation organizations by promoting a sustainable, environmentally sound trade that provides incentives for reef stewardship, conservation and management.

When communities derive economic benefits from a resource, they become predisposed to participate in protection of those resources. By giving value to the sustainable use of coral reef resources, the marine ornamental industry sets a climate for partnerships for broad coral reef conservation. Conservation organizations can partner with local communities that depend on marine aquarium resources to help them not only to embrace MAC Certification but also to protect the greater coral reef ecosystem from its myriad threats. This will protect biodiversity and also help protect the ornamental industry and its role as a conservation incentive. Coastal communities with incentives to manage and conserve reefs are the only hope for widespread, ongoing, effective and financially sustainable reef conservation and management, especially in countries that do not have enough funds to create, implement and enforce enough laws and management plans to protect all reefs all the time.

MAC Certification also benefits conservation by requiring that industry support monitoring, documentation and conservation and management of reefs as the way it does business. Among these requirements are monitoring of reefs and stocks for compliance with international Standards; documentation of compliance with Standards; submission of trade data to an international information system; and management plans and conservation areas for harvested reefs. In other words, through the MAC Certification system, industry will help finance reef conservation.