Saving Seafood

New guide to help evaluate marine protected areas

September 29, 2021 — A new “MPA Guide,” resulting from a collaboration of 42 authors led by Kirsten Grorud-Colvert of Oregon State University, aims to facilitate communication and common understanding about marine protected areas.

The guide was introduced in a paper in the 10 September issue of Science magazine, “The MPA Guide: A framework to achieve global goals for the ocean.” In it, the authors review the consistency, of MPAs and propose a framework by which levels of protection can be evaluated and improved.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Close Quarters: Ocean zoning pushes fisheries to the brink

September 23, 2021 — The following is an excerpt from an article published in National Fisherman by Dr. Roger Mann, professor of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It is based on an article published by the Journal of Shellfish Research. That paper, “An Ecosystem is Not a Monument, and Other Challenges to Fishing in the 21st Century,” is based on a talk given by Dr. Mann at the annual meeting of the National Shellfisheries Association.

Managing fisheries is no longer simply about [the Magnuson Stevens Act’s] directives to “conserve and manage” a sustainable resource to serve the “social and economic needs of the States.” It is about managing fisheries in a changing landscape of competition for ocean resources, where the environment is changing faster than in living history, and species footprints are on the move.

Part of this changing landscape is the creation of large, no-take MPAs, like the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument off the coast of Cape Cod. Designated by President Obama with the sweep of a pen using the Antiquities Act of 1906, the 4,913 square miles of the monument are now managed by multiple federal agencies under a bewildering patchwork of legislation, including Magnuson, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, the Refuge Recreation Act, Public Law 98-532, and Executive Order 6166. Then there is the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, through which the government can designate and protect marine areas of national significance.

This plethora of confusing legislation lacks uniform definitions. It is not clear on how — or even if — MPA designations are required to be revisited, even when species move. In addition, it does not state who has precedent over whom in the management hierarchy.

Even as questions remain over existing MPAs, activists are pushing for more with a “30×30” campaign to protect 30 percent of our nation’s land, inland waters and oceans as conservation areas by 2030. But what is “protected” in this context? Is a region protected only by excluding fishermen through a no-take MPA? Or does the Magnuson Act directive to “conserve and manage the fishery resources” and “exercise sound judgment in [their] stewardship” rise to the level of protection? If so, then is not the entire exclusive economic zone already protected?

MPAs are far from the only competition fishermen are facing in the ocean. Environmental advocacy, communications corridors, mining, national defense, and shipping all threaten fishermen’s access to ocean resources. Perhaps the biggest incursion of all is offshore wind development: the U.S. East Coast continental shelf already has 1.7 million acres of federal bottom under lease for offshore wind, with the Biden administration seemingly poised to expand such efforts along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. Offshore wind projects have a projected lifespan of 50 years, with turbine spacing restricting access for both commercial fishing vessels towing mobile gear and federal survey vessels. Stock assessment surveys will be compromised, resulting in reduced quotas for fishermen.

With so many competitors muscling their way into the ocean, who will be the winners and losers? Over what time frames will winners emerge? Where does preservation of the fishing industry sit in the pecking order? At the bottom?

The “space” for fisheries is shrinking. Commercial fishing won’t be the largest economic player as development of our oceans continues, but it is historically an important part of the economic and social structure of coastal communities. Fisheries are based on moving species distributions that do not function well within fixed boundaries, like those being zoned for MPAs and offshore wind.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Ray Hilborn: MPAs aren’t the answer to ocean biodiversity, sustainability efforts

June 1, 2021 — A global movement to create additional marine protected areas (MPAs) has been steadily gaining traction in recent years, with the initiative picking up milestone victories in the past few months.

In January, newly inaugurated U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order committing to a “30 by 30” goal, whereby the United States would designated 30 percent of its land and territorial waters to conservation by the year 2030. The move heightened the potential that MPAs will be used as a tool to tackle climate change.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Federal Fishery Council Seeks Applicants for Advisory Panels and Workgroup

April 12, 2019 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is currently soliciting applicants for open advisory panel seats as well as fishing representatives to serve on the System Management Plan Workgroup. The Workgroup will address future needs of managed areas in federal waters in the South Atlantic. The Council currently has system management plans in place for Deepwater Marine Protected Areas, Spawning Special Management Zones, and the Oculina Experimental Closed Area. Additional areas will be added, with the goal to eventually have a single System Management Plan in place for all managed areas. The System Management Plan Workgroup will be responsible for drafting reports on the recommendations for size, configuration, and regulations for managed areas; discussing research, outreach, and enforcement efforts; and commenting on research priorities. Travel and per diem expenses will be covered if in-person meetings are held.

The Council’s advisory panel members provide information and guidance in the development and implementation of federal fishery management plans. Members include recreational and commercial fishermen, seafood dealers and processors, scientists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as environmental groups, fishing organizations, etc., and concerned citizens. Advisory panel members are appointed by the Council and serve for a three-year period, based on the frequency of meetings. The Council’s advisory panels generally meet no more than once or twice each year and are compensated for travel and per diem expenses for all meetings.

Applications are now being solicited for the following positions:

Habitat Advisory Panel
(1) NC Commercial Seat
(1) FL Commercial Seat
(1) At-large Research/Geologist

System Management Plan Workgroup
(1) GA Commercial Seat

How to Apply

Application forms for individual advisory panels and the SMP Workgroup are available online from the Council’s website at: http://safmc.net/about-safmc/advisory-panels/. For questions about the advisory panel seats please contact Kim Iverson, Public Information Officer, at Kim.Iverson@safmc.net or call the Council office at 843/571-4366. Questions regarding the SMP Workgroup should be directed to Dr. Chip Collier at chip.collier@safmc.net or by calling the Council office.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact area Council representatives to discuss their interest in serving. Contact information for all Council members is available from the “About Us” section of the Council’s website at www.safmc.net or through the Council office.

Applications must be received by May 10, 2019 for consideration by the Council during its June 10-14 meeting in Hutchinson Island, Florida.

Will Large Protected Areas Save the Oceans or Politicize Them?

March 25, 2019 — How can we save the oceans? They cover two-thirds of the planet, but none are safe from fishing fleets, minerals prospectors, or the insidious influences of global warming and ocean acidification.

In the past decade, there has been a push to create giant new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). They now cover nearly 9.7 million square miles, equivalent to more than the land area of North America. Cristiana Pașca Palmer, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, says the world is on course reach the convention’s target of having a tenth of the oceans protected by next year.

But questions are being raised. The growth has been driven by the formation of giant MPAs bigger than many countries, often in remote regions where the threat to biodiversity is lower. So, critics are asking, are countries creating big distant MPAs to distract attention from the harder task of protecting trashed coastal ecosystems closer to home? And is there a geopolitical game afoot, a stealth rush to control the oceans for political ends? And does that explain why half of the ocean waters covered by MPAs are in the hands of the United States and two former European colonial powers, Britain and France?

Most ocean scientists see the rush to create vast MPAs as a boon to marine conservation. They are cost-effective, connect different marine ecosystems, and encompass larger parts of the ranges of migrating species such as whales and tuna, protecting “corridors of connectivity among habitats in ways not afforded by smaller MPAs,” says Bethan O’Leary, a marine scientist at the University of York in England.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360

Marine life worse off inside ‘protected’ areas, analysis reveals

December 27, 2018 — Destructive trawling is more intense inside official marine sanctuaries, while endangered fish are more common outside them, a startling analysis of Europe’s seas has revealed.

It shows that far from conserving sealife, many legal marine protected areas (MPAs) are being damaged by industrial fishing. The work has exposed “the big lie” behind European marine conservation, experts say, with most MPAs completely open to trawling.

The researchers were able to assess the activity of fishing vessels in great detail thanks to satellite tracking equipment that is now compulsory on ships. They compared this with scientific data on the health of sea areas and looked at more than 700 MPAs, covering 16% of Europe’s territorial waters. In total, MPAs cover 29% of Europe’s waters.

This revealed that commercial trawling activity was on average almost 40% higher inside MPAs than in unprotected areas. Furthermore, endangered and critically endangered fish species such as sharks and rays were five times more abundant outside the MPAs.

“It should be the reverse,” said Prof Boris Worm, at Dalhousie University in Canada, who led the research. “When something is called a protected area, it actually needs to be protected. We know that when areas are actually protected they deliver: species recover, biodiversity increases and fisheries benefit as well, as fish become more abundant and spill outside these areas.

Read the full story at The Guardian

When Conservation Backfires

August 29, 2018 — On New Year’s Day 2015, as celebratory fireworks erupted around the world, a quieter but no less explosive change was happening in Kiribati. After years of planning, the central-Pacific nation finally instigated a complete ban on all fishing within a 157,000-square-mile area of ocean, equivalent in size to California. This area—the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA)—had enjoyed limited (and controversial) protections since 2008. But the upgrade of 2015 turned it into one of the biggest protected areas on the planet, and arguably one of the most lauded. Here was a place where some 500 fish species could swim untroubled. Here was a sign of humanity’s growing commitment to protecting the oceans.

But the lead-up to this upgrade was a long one, full of the usual gauntlet of debates, public meeting, and blue-ribbon panels. Those discussions had been going on since at least the fall of 2013—and that gave fishers time to react. By analyzing ship movements, Grant McDermott from the University of Oregon and Kyle Meng from the University of California at Santa Barbara have shown that fishing intensity more than doubled in the site of the future reserve in the run-up to 2015. The damage was equivalent to fishing continuing for another year and a half after the ban took effect. The path to fully protecting PIPA triggered a preemptive race to yank as many fish from its waters as possible before the opportunity to do so closed for good.

Read the full story at The Atlantic

MPAs will suffer, along with the rest of the ocean, as the planet warms

May 15, 2018 — A paper (Bruno et al. 2018) released last week in Nature Climate Change mapped the effects of future emissions on marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world. The results were unsurprising—climate change threatens every MPA (and indeed every part of the ocean), with a range of impacts. This study focused mainly on warming temperatures and changing oxygen levels, but anthropogenic stressors on the ocean also include ocean acidification, rising sea levels, more intense storms, distorted currents, and altered nutrient distribution.

To understand the paper, its conclusions, and any kind of positive takeaway (we get there at the end), an understanding of representative concentration pathways (RCP) is needed. An RCP is a scientifically backed estimate of radiative forcing (you can think of this as the amount of global warming) based on different emissions scenarios. Basically, an RCP estimates the amount of warming Earth will experience based on the amount of future emissions. It is important to note that RCPs are not climate models—they are scientifically standardized scenarios that can be used to set up models. The 4 recognized RCPs are: RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6, and 8.5.

In the paper, the authors model RCP 8.5, the worst-case scenario where politicians, governments and people don’t make meaningful change in the future. Predictably, the results are not good. In this scenario, temperatures inside (and outside) MPAs are expected to rise by an average of 0.035° C per year leading to “protected areas” that are at least 2° C (4.6° F) warmer by the end of the century.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

 

Large, Open Ocean MPAs Distract from More Pressing Ocean Issues

May 15, 2018 — Effective conservation requires thoughtful decision-making to successfully navigate complex issues involving food, livelihood, and preservation. Fishery management is conservation in practice as it tries to ensure that fish for food and enjoyment persist indefinitely. However, the tools chosen for the job have implications for the environment and the people using it. There are limited resources to devote to a myriad of issues, and most decisions have winners and losers. With any conservation objective, each potential management tool should be critically evaluated to consider externalities and alternatives. No-take MPAs that restrict all fishing can be the right tool for conservation and management, but not always.

Recently, many global conservation leaders have called for a dramatic increase in the amount of no-take MPA coverage worldwide, mainly through large, open-ocean marine protected areas (LOOMPAs). Touting these immense MPAs as the pinnacle of ocean protection is popular right now, but fails to acknowledge the social and biological shortcomings of LOOMPAs and, crucially, is a poor use of political capital. Understanding and accounting for the critiques of LOOMPAs will make fisheries and ocean conservation better.

Prudent, coastal MPAs are good

MPAs function by restricting fishing in an area of the ocean. If well enforced, they are an effective management tool for specific coastal habitats, like coral reefs, which need healthy fish populations to function properly. Coral reefs are also extremely delicate; preventing harmful fishing practices can greatly benefit the ecosystem. Fortunately, commercial fishing is less reliant on coral reefs than other ocean habitats.

MPAs that protect seagrass meadows and kelp forests along the coast can also work to mitigate climate change and ocean acidification as seagrasses and kelp are the oceans’ greatest carbon sinks, sequestering more carbon per acre than terrestrial forests. Proper protection would restrict damaging fishing gear to keep the underwater forests and meadows intact.

Large, Open Ocean MPAs are contentious, biologically.

Large, open ocean MPAs (LOOMPAs) are designed to protect huge swaths of open ocean, but are a poor choice for efficiently and effectively managing fisheries. The idea is that by restricting fishing in such a large area, highly migratory fish that travel across the open ocean (like tuna) will have better opportunities to grow and reproduce. However, highly migratory fish are just that—highly migratory. Tuna populations move thousands of miles; in and out of LOOMPAs, EEZs, and the high seas.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

 

Study: Marine Protected Areas Won’t Matter

May 10, 2018 — New research from the University of North Carolina concludes that most marine life in marine protected areas will not be able to tolerate warming ocean temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

There are 8,236 marine protected areas around the world covering about four percent of the surface of the ocean. They have been established as a haven to protect threatened marine life, like polar bears, penguins and coral reefs, from the effects of fishing and other activities such as oil and gas extraction.

The study found that with continued “business-as-usual” emissions, the protections currently in place won’t matter, because by 2100, warming and reduced oxygen concentration will make marine protected areas uninhabitable by most species currently residing in those areas.

The study predicts that under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario, better known as the “business as usual scenario,” marine protected areas will warm by 2.8 degrees Celsius (or 5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Mean sea-surface temperatures within marine protected areas are projected to increase 0.034 degrees Celsius (or 0.061 degrees Fahrenheit) per year.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive