Marine Protected Areas
Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary
Objectives
After years of both cooperative effort and contentious debate, the MPAs within the CINMS officially became law on April 9, 2003. Ten of these MPAs are designated ‘no-take’ areas within the Sanctuary indicating fishing for any species is not permitted within the MPA boundaries. MPAs of various sizes were established throughout the Sanctuary encompassing approximately 10 percent of the CINMS. Controversy surrounds the MPAs as there is uncertainty concerning the actual benefits of the reserves and the impact upon the fishing community.
The idea of an MPA is a relatively new concept in fishery management and one that mirrors the idea of national parks on land, i.e. the protection of an entire area and everything within its boundaries. Nations across the world are creating MPAs in response to mounting evidence that ocean ecosystems are approaching collapse due in large part to over-fishing. The establishment of an MPA offers protection not only for the individual species inside the boundaries, but also for ecosystem structure and function through the protection of the ocean habitat.
There are approximately 100 MPAs
established in 23 nations across the world (PISCO, 03).
These MPAs encompasses
less than 1 percent of the world’s oceans and have a median size of 1.5 square
miles. Although still relatively new, recent studies have shown that
MPAs lead to increases in the size, frequency, biomass, and abundance of species
and can have positive spillover effects for a number of species (Halpern, 2003).
Developing an ecological monitoring program that evaluates the effectiveness of MPAs in the CINMS is a critical component of assessing their performance. It is necessary to clearly demonstrate whether MPAs provide ecological benefits mentioned above, as well as economic benefits that positively impact fisheries. Monitoring programs are needed to answer two key questions surrounding the impact of these areas. First, do reserves produce benefits within their boundaries? Secondly, do reserves produce benefits outside of their boundaries? These questions address the social, economic and ecological impacts MPAs can have due to fishing closures.
Ecological research and monitoring programs currently exist throughout the CINMS. These programs are conducted by universities, private researchers, and agencies including the National Park Service and the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). However, the current research is not specifically designed to study the affects of MPAs. Paired monitoring sites inside and outside the MPAs need to be created to evaluate the effects of the MPAs.
Designing an effective ecological monitoring program requires a number of specific steps. The first step is to identify the gaps in the current monitoring programs. To accomplish this, EMWG assisted the CDFG and CINMS in planning the Channel Islands Marine Protected Areas Monitoring Workshop, which brought together scientists, fishers, and other researchers to discus the gaps in monitoring. Using summaries from this workshop, EMWG recognized these gaps and began the development of the monitoring plan.
With knowledge from recognized gaps, sites for monitoring must be established. As mentioned above, these sites should be paired inside and outside of the MPAs to effectively evaluate their performance. Placement of the sites will be determined through the incorporation of current research, ethnographic knowledge, fishery effort, and the biogeography of the species. Verification of the sites must then occur to ensure that the sites are appropriate for the species or communities being studied and that the paired sites inside and outside of the reserve are comparable. Subsequently, ecological monitoring plans will be created. Using both cost benefit and statistical power analyses, the most cost effective, yet statistically relevant plan can be selected to monitor the MPAs.
Development, implementation, and execution of biological monitoring programs to assess the ecological performances of the reserves are now the highest priorities for State and Federal officials. User groups such as commercial fishers, and public stakeholders such as divers and researchers also agree that implementing and executing monitoring programs of the reserves are a high priority. The benefits of Bren students’ participation in this process are social, economic and scientific.
To develop the monitoring plan EMWG will use ethnographic knowledge from local fishers, researchers and divers. Through extensive interviews and groundtruthing, the stakeholders’ knowledge will be included in determining the most effective monitoring program. Through this interaction, stakeholders will: (1) participate in ecological monitoring, and (2) gain a greater understanding of the ecological monitoring process. Fishers have demonstrated enthusiasm in monitoring and assisting the CDFG (Monitoring Workshop, 2003).
The project is prepared to determine the most cost-effective way for the CDFG to provide a statistically significant, unbiased comparison between reserve sites and non-reserve sites for California sheephead, California spiny lobster, and benthic community structure. Long-term economic goals include the increased yield in a sustainable fishery as a result of effective marine management.
The CINMS is researched by a variety of ecologists, yet no research is looking directly at the effects of MPAs on species of interest. Currently, there is an unprecedented experiment taking place in the CINMS: the MPAs set up around the 5 northern most Channel Islands. By eliminating fishing pressure within their boundaries, MPAs can create biological and ecological changes that lead to the improved management of marine resources. Proper ecological monitoring needs to begin immediately to determine if MPAs are in fact a useful tool in managing marine resources in the CINMS. Hunter, we need to explain the immediacy in terms of BACI- can you explain this to us. EMWG will combine current research and scientific knowledge to set in place a monitoring plan. EMWG will include monitoring at both the species and ecosystem levels. Monitoring the individual species of sheephead and spiny lobster is a high priority to local stakeholders. Monitoring at the ecosystem level is necessary to understand the complex interactions in a community removed from fishing pressure.
Documenting the process of the development of a monitoring program can be used as a blueprint and applied to other monitoring programs in the future. Further, the California sheephead and California spiny lobster monitoring plans may be applied to monitoring programs for other species of high public ranking.
Widespread and dramatic fishery collapses have occurred in marine systems (Botsford et al., 1997; Pauly et al., 1998). Collapses are due to an interaction of overfishing, climate changes, fishery-related habitat destruction, and shifts in socioeconomic drivers (Lenihan and Peterson, 1998). As a result, greater attention is being directed towards ecosystem-level management techniques described in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act of 1996. Fisheries in the Southern California Bight have declined greatly over the last decade (Love et al., 1998), and no-take marine reserves, referred to as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), within the (CINMS) have been implemented as a tool to conserve and manage marine resources. It is essential to monitor these MPAs in order to determine their effectiveness as a conservation and management technique in the CINMS.
According to a public survey conducted by the CDFG and participants from the Workshop, the spiny lobster is a high, ranking focal sanctuary species (Airamé, 2003). Spiny lobster has been recreationally and commercially fished since the early 1800s. Current abundance and size distributions are clearly different from historical patterns (Dayton et al., 1998). In 1888, 260 traps yielded ~231,060 lbs. By 1975, 19,000 traps were required to harvest almost the same mass (~233,179 lbs) (references in Tegner and Levin, 1983). This fishery is not closed in the CINMS and therefore the effect of fishing pressure on the status of the lobster population can be compared between sites inside (no fishing pressure) and outside (high fishing pressure) reserves.
The
California sheephead is ranked highest in the CDFG public survey on Sanctuary
species importance (Airamé, 2003). The
fishery is important to sport divers, recreational anglers and the live
commercial fishing industry. California
sheephead have been fished since the 1800s, but the species has only been
targeted significantly since the 1980s
(Science Panel, 2001).
There have been major changes in the abundance and size distribution of
California sheephead in southern California.
Recreational landings of California sheephead decreased from 230 metric
tons in 1980, to 50-100 metric tons per year since 1994.
Commercial landings also decreased from 150 metric tons and 166 metric
tons in 1992 and 1997 respectively, to ~60 metric tons in 2000 (Science Panel,
2001; Leet et al., 2001). The
effect of fishing pressure on the status of the fish population can be compared
between sites inside (no fishing pressure) and outside (fishing pressure)
reserves.
The benthic community gives an indication of ecosystem health through
measurement of biodiversity. Fisheries
have increasingly affected the benthic community. Emerging markets for turban snails, whelks, and sea cucumbers
currently have no catch regulations (Dayton et al. 1998).
In the dive fishery for warty sea cucumbers, there is evidence of
significant declines in population size (i.e. 33% -83%) of fished areas (Schroeter
et al.,
in review). Given the historical
expansion of invertebrate fisheries in the region, it is likely that future
fisheries will target additional benthic species (Science Panel, 2001).
Further, the benthic community monitoring has the capacity to show
evidence of both invasive species abundance, which is
not currently monitored,
and abundance of commercially valuable species, such as urchin.