The permanent closure of large marine areas is often regarded as an effective strategy for conserving marine biodiversity. However, implementing large permanent closures can be difficult in many small-scale fisheries systems, where communities depend heavily on marine resources for their livelihoods and food security, and where issues of equity and access must be carefully considered. Around the world, many coastal communities instead rely on temporary closures - areas that open and close over time - to balance ecological recovery with ongoing use. Despite their prevalence and potential, these dynamic approaches remain conceptually underdeveloped compared to permanent marine-protected areas. This article calls for a reevaluation of marine management's prevailing focus on space by bringing time to the forefront of analysis. We introduce a framework that distinguishes two key temporal dimensions - duration and cyclicity - to clarify how different temporal designs shape ecological, social and governance outcomes. Within this framework, cyclicity captures how closures and openings alternate over time, including the relative balance between periods of access and closure (i.e., the access ratio). Drawing on diverse examples where temporary management is implemented, this framework lays the groundwork for developing more formal theory and comparative evidence about how temporal strategies can align ecological recovery with livelihood dynamics in resource-dependent systems.
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