Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a fundamental part of global efforts to conserve ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services. At the same time, they can serve important roles in promoting wider sustainable development within coastal areas. In doing so, MPAs can contribute a variety of positive social and ecological outcomes. For MPAs to be effective and just, they must consider how outcomes may be distributed within communities. An important consideration for promoting positive and just outcomes is gender inclusion, which is the focus of this thesis. Advancing knowledge on the links between gender and MPAs is needed to make progress towards more inclusive management and better MPA outcomes overall. The aim of the thesis was to identify ways forward for more inclusive management and better outcomes across social and ecological components. Four studies representing MPAs in Zanzibar, Tanzania and Baja California Sur, Mexico, involved a variety of approaches including interviews, household surveys and remote sensing. Outcomes were explored through investigating gender differences in adaptive capacity (Paper I) and higher returning livelihoods (Paper II). Additionally, the differing perceptions of men and women were examined regarding their local MPA and how to sustain positive outcomes despite emerging challenges (Paper III). Paper IV focuses more so on the ecological aspects of MPA improvement and suggests that design and management of MPAs can be improved by considering the surrounding pelagic seascape in which MPAs are embedded. This is important for long-term planning around the local impacts arising from large-scale environmental change.The four papers found a range of differences and similarities, with implications for informing more gender inclusive approaches to conservation and sustainable development. Important findings included that there were gender differences in adaptive capacity in Zanzibar MPAs, with men-headed households typically having higher levels. Women-headed households in these MPAs were also more so reliant on seaweed farming strategies, which is an important consideration for poverty alleviation due to lower livelihood returns. Nonetheless, coastal livelihoods have been changing in Zanzibar MPAs, with substantial declines in seaweed farming. In Baja California Sur, local perceptions were explored in the Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP) and were found to be similar between men and women residents. However, it was observed that men and women expressed different knowledge around aspects regarding the CPNP success, which holds implications for more integrative management. Finally, the thesis recommends including re-thinking how MPAs engage with local knowledge-holders, promoting agency building and mapping gender aspects in seascapes to tailor long-term planning for environmental change.