Saving Seafood

Fishing Then & Now: A look at marine protected areas

March 7, 2022 — Thirty years ago, [National Fisherman’s] then-editor Jim Fullilove made a prophetic statement on no-take marine reserves.

“The perceived simplicity of the no-harvest zone idea makes it dangerous,” Fullilove wrote on page 6 of the March 1992 edition. “Fencing off reserves is a fishery management tool that could become the darling of politicians and special-interest groups with anti-fishing agendas and little regard for the complexity of fish population dynamics.”

At the time, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council was considering roping off 20 percent of the coastal waters off of each state in the region to be designated as reserves.

As of Feb. 12, 2009, the council had established eight deep-water marine protected areas off the four states in its jurisdiction — North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Despite the fact that the council spent the better part of two decades designing and establishing these areas, there is no conclusive evidence — more than a decade after their implementation — that they are working.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Shifting ocean closures best way to protect animals from accidental catch

January 18, 2022 — Accidentally trapping sharks, seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and other animals in fishing gear is one of the biggest barriers to making fisheries more sustainable around the world. Marine protected areas — sections of the ocean set aside to conserve biodiversity — are used, in part, to reduce the unintentional catch of such animals, among other conservation goals.

Many nations are calling for protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 from some or all types of exploitation, including fishing. Building off this proposal, a new analysis led by the University of Washington looks at how effective fishing closures are at reducing accidental catch. Researchers found that permanent marine protected areas are a relatively inefficient way to protect marine biodiversity that is accidentally caught in fisheries. Dynamic ocean management — changing the pattern of closures as accidental catch hotspots shift — is much more effective. The results were published Jan. 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We hope this study will add to the growing movement away from permanently closed areas to encourage more dynamic ocean management,” said senior author Ray Hilborn, a professor at the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “Also, by showing the relative ineffectiveness of static areas, we hope it will make conservation advocates aware that permanent closed areas are much less effective in reducing accidental catch than changes in fishing methods.”

Read the full story at UW News

Retraction: Study of marine protected areas deemed flawed with conflict of interest

December 17, 2021 — Sometimes fishermen get lucky, and their complaints about flawed data get noticed by scientists. Such was the case with an article about Marine Protected Areas that’s been used to justify a new push for ocean zoning — including the recent 30×30 initiative to shutter up to 30 percent of the nation’s waters.

“A retraction is a Big Deal in science, especially from a prominent journal,” wrote Max Mossler in a post on the University of Washington’s Sustainable Fisheries UW.

It’s an even bigger deal — or should be — if that article is being used to position policy at the federal level.

The original piece, Mossler writes, “claimed that closing an additional 5 percent of the ocean to fishing would increase fish catches by 20 percent.” Some of the biggest titles in the mainstream press picked it up.

We’re talking End of Fish by 2048-level propaganda.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Due To Climate Change, Ocean Habitats Could Be Remarkably Different By 2060

December 1, 2021 — A new study projects how climate change will affect the oceans, and protected areas in particular. The scientists used a series of different warming scenarios to determine how climate change might alter the oceans.

According to lead author Steven Mana’oakamai Johnson, “In all three scenarios, conditions in more than half of the ocean are going to be novel, meaning new and significantly different, than they have been in the last 50 years.”

Due to the strong links between the ocean and atmosphere, the ocean will continue to absorb fossil fuel emissions and its internal chemistry will shift in such a way that it could require updated conservation measures for 97% of large marine protected areas. And, unchecked climate change could cause increases in acidity as soon as 2030.

Read the full story at Forbes

A provocative proposal: sell fishing rights in protected seas to prevent poaching

December 1, 2021 — Marine protected areas can be a victim of their own success. By banning or restricting fishing within their waters, these reserves can build healthy populations of fish, with some swimming into neighboring waters where they can be caught. But sometimes the brimming schools are too much of a temptation, with poachers furtively darting into the protected zone for an illegal haul. Preventing this poaching is hard, experts say, because at-sea enforcement can be complicated and expensive.

Now, researchers have proposed a provocative and heretical-sounding solution: sell fishing rights within parts of plentiful marine reserves and use the money to guard other parts that remain off-limits. And in what might seem like a paradox, the approach could even end up producing more fish, the researchers reported on 17 November in Environmental Research Letters.

The proposal has received mixed reviews. “The idea may sound horrible,” says Christopher Costello, an environmental economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). And some say it’s far too risky because it could encourage governments to shrink reserves to nothing. “I don’t think you should be reducing existing no-take areas to allow more fishing,” says Jon Day, who spent 39 years helping manage Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. “That’s really dangerous.”

But other scientists and advocates are intrigued. “I could see the concept working,” says Matt Rand, who leads the large-scale marine habitat conservation program at the Pew Charitable Trusts. “It has a lot of promise.”

Read the full story at Science

NOAA considers marine sanctuary off Hawaiian Islands

November 19, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA:

NOAA announced today it is initiating the process to consider designating the marine portions of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a national marine sanctuary. This designation would build on existing management in the marine portions of the monument by adding the conservation benefits and enhanced long-term protection of a national marine sanctuary.

The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Report for Fiscal Year 2021 directed NOAA to initiate the process to designate the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument as a national marine sanctuary to supplement and complement, rather than supplant, existing authorities. Stakeholders and partners, including the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Advisory Council and the State of Hawai’i, support the current sanctuary designation process.

Since the designation of the site as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve by President Clinton in 2000, the designation as a marine national monument by President Bush in 2006, and the expansion of the monument by President Obama in 2016, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has been a key partner and co-managing agency in the management of Papahānaumokuākea. NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, State of Hawaiʻi and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs co-manage the monument, and that hallmark co-management structure will continue. This initiative is being conducted in cooperation with the co-trustees.

“Papahānaumokuākea’s ecosystems are increasingly under pressure from threats such as marine debris, invasive species, and climate change,” said Rick Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA Administrator. “Designation of the monument’s waters as a national marine sanctuary would complement the efforts of the four co-trustees to safeguard the monument’s natural, cultural, and historic values.”

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is the largest contiguous fully-protected conservation area under the U.S. flag, encompassing an area of 582,578 square miles of the Pacific Ocean—an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined. Home to the highly endangered Hawaiian monk seal, threatened green turtles, extensive coral reef habitat, and many species found nowhere else on earth, the complex and highly productive marine ecosystems of the monument are significant contributors to the biological diversity of the ocean.

Papahānaumokuākea is of great importance to Native Hawaiians. Throughout the expanse of the monument, there are many wahi pana (places of great cultural significance and practice) where Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners of today reconnect with their ancestors and gods. The monument is also home to a variety of post-Western-contact historic resources, such as those associated with the Battle of Midway and 19th century commercial whaling.

Many of the monument’s extensive education, outreach, and research accomplishments have been executed under the authority of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. Sanctuary designation would enhance the benefits and expertise offered by the National Marine Sanctuary System and NOAA staff.

Designation would also allow NOAA to apply additional regulatory and non-regulatory tools to augment and strengthen existing protections for Papahānaumokuākea ecosystems, wildlife, and cultural and maritime heritage resources. The sanctuary designation would not include any terrestrial areas or change the monument designation.

NOAA is accepting public comment on the proposal through Jan. 31, 2022. For more information on the proposed sanctuary designation and how to comment, see the Federal Register notice. Learn more at here.

Please view our media resources page for images, video, and maps.

 

Another Challenge for Conservation Efforts: Gender Inequity

November 17, 2021 — When the fisherman leveled his spear gun and fired at her across the dark water, Evelyn Malicay held her ground in her kayak, gripping a stone to defend herself. This was her backyard, the marine sanctuary she had helped create and felt a duty to protect.

The spear missed. Ms. Malicay’s efforts to catch yet another late-night poacher did not. “What they do not know,” she said, recalling that night several years ago when she called the police on the man, “is that I am always on watch.”

Ms. Malicay, 53, a compact, vibrant Filipina mother who years ago lost her village council seat over her support for the Maite Marine Sanctuary, has since apprehended neighbors and relatives fishing inside it, recruited dozens of community members to back her and won numerous awards for her championship of marine conservation.

The sanctuary, just steps away from her home, is one of the most successful of the 22 marine protected areas on the island of Siquijor in the south-central Philippines, at the heart of the species-rich Coral Triangle. This no-fishing zone shares one uncommon asset with a variety of other unusually successful conservation projects around the globe: It’s run by women.

Read the full story at the New York Times

NOAA Awards $1.7 Million for Habitat Connectivity Research to Support National Marine Sanctuaries

October 14, 2021 — From a bird’s eye view, the ocean appears to be an endless expanse of blue. Though, if you peek below the surface, the water column and seafloor reveal an active place made up of varying ecosystems that consist of a myriad of organisms and habitats.

Understanding how these different habitats are connected to each other and how fishes, marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles use them is the focus of three newly funded projects in Florida Keys, Flower Garden Banks, and Stellwagen Bank national marine sanctuaries. This month, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science is announcing $1.7 million of an anticipated $5.9 million in funding for research to support the management of national marine sanctuaries.

This newly funded research will focus on how different species are using habitats within marine protected areas (MPAs) by tagging and tracking key species using telemetry in each sanctuary. Scientists and resource managers will use this information to determine if the protected area is working well to support that particular species, and inform future management decisions.

Read the full story at ECO Magazine

 

A sea of choices confronts Biden admin in ocean protection

October 5, 2021 — When it comes to meeting its aggressive conservation pledge, the Biden administration appears to have a head start on protecting the United States’ oceans — after all, on paper, the nation is already more than two-thirds of the way to the goal.

But as the administration puts together a tracking mechanism for its pledge to conserve 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, environmental activists warn that frequently cited statistics provide a misleading picture of ocean conservation.

At the same time, advocates for the fishing industry question counter the nation is much closer to the final objective — if not already there. They argue that conservation shouldn’t always mean activities like fishing are banned and say their industry has shown itself willing to help protect vulnerable species.

Managed waters

Opponents of new marine monuments, however, argue that managed waters are sufficient to meet the conservation goals.

“If it’s not conserved unless it’s in a marine sanctuary that excludes fishing — which is a fairly radical and extreme point of view — then I think you get into a very different set of calculations about how you get to 30 percent,” said Roger Mann, a marine sciences professor at the College of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Mann pointed to language in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s primary fisheries law, that calls for “conservation and management” of the oceans.

“If you’re conserving sustainable resources … then all of the area that is managed under Magnuson is already a conservation area,” argued Mann, who previously served on the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

“The councils can all sit there and scratch their heads and say, ‘We’re not 30×30. We’re 100 percent by 2021. What’s the problem?’” he said.

Former Garden State Seafood Association Executive Director Greg DiDomenico said he is optimistic that the Biden administration will adhere to its vow for scientific integrity, but remains staunchly opposed to the idea of new monuments.

“What we expect from 30×30, ultimately, is that it be conducted under rigorous science and an open, transparent policy,” said DiDomenico, who is now with Lund’s Fisheries.

DiDomenico pointed to the creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument during former President Obama’s tenure, which closed the area to commercial fishing.

Former President Trump reversed that closure in 2020, and the New England Fishery Management Council subsequently implemented protections for deep-sea corals in more than 80 percent of the monument (E&E News PM, June 5, 2020).

“The proof is in the pudding,” DiDomenico said, pointing to what is formally known as the Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment.

He added that: “No one is running from this. We’ve been here before.”

Read the full story at E&E News