MPA News
Chagos: Background on a Disputed Archipelago and Efforts to Designate its Waters as a Reserve
When the UK government launched a public consultation in November 2009 on whether it should designate an MPA around the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean (also called the British Indian Ocean Territory), it reignited a decades-old controversy on the rights of islanders who used to live there. Expelled by the UK government in the 1960s to make room for a joint UK-US military base, Chagossian refugees have campaigned for the right to return. The resettlement issue has wended its way through the UK court system and Parliament, and might go next to the European Court of Human Rights. The…
Letter to the Editor: Reserve Effects
Dear MPA News, I am writing in response to your article “The Reserve Effect on Fisheries: In Light of Recent Studies, Should It Be Considered Settled Science?” (MPA News 11:4). MPA scientists should not get too set with classifying spillover as settled science. In the waters off East Central Florida, I have been fishing just west of a 96-square mile area called the Oculina Bank Habitat Area of Particular Concern since it was closed to reef fishing in 1994 (www.safmc.net/Portals/0/Oculina/OculinaRackCard.pdf). To date, the fishing is not as good in the open area as it used to be prior to the…
Notes & News
Pacific Island leaders to close 4.5 million km2 of high seas to tuna vessels In February, Parties to the Nauru Agreement – under which management of Central and Western Pacific fisheries is coordinated, including on the high seas – released a joint declaration on the future direction of the region’s tuna fishery. Among other measures, the declaration calls for the closure of 4.56 million km2 of high seas to purse seine vessels. In size, the closures will total more than eight times the land area of France. The reasons for the closures and other measures are conservation and economic profit,…
Science spotlight: Global study shows MPAs help to stop coral loss
A global analysis of more than 8000 coral cover surveys from 1969-2006 has compared annual changes in coral cover inside MPAs to unprotected areas. The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found that marine protected areas halted the loss of coral cover over time while coral cover on unprotected reefs continued to decline. In the most recent complete year in the study (2004-2005), for example, coral cover within MPAs increased 0.05% in the Caribbean and 0.08% in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. In contrast, unprotected reefs in that same year declined 0.27% in the Caribbean and 0.41% in the…
The Reserve Effect on Fisheries: In Light of Recent Studies, Should It Be Considered Settled Science?
The concept that no-take marine reserves can benefit nearby fisheries by supplying them with larvae and adult fish is central to reserves’ potential role in fisheries management. According to the theory of the reserve effect, fish that are protected inside reserves live to maturity and reproduce, and some of the young and/or adults cross the reserve boundary into unprotected waters. There they can be caught by fishers. Much of the attraction of the reserve effect is that it offers benefits both for conservation and fisheries. Research on the effect has typically been difficult to carry out. This is due to…
Letters to the Editor: Seismic Surveys and MPAs
Our November-December 2009 article on seismic surveys and MPAs resulted in several letters from readers (MPA News 11:3). The article highlighted a case involving Canada’s Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area, where an academic research team sought to conduct a seismic survey to study the seabed and plate tectonics of the region. A legal challenge by conservation organizations attempted to block the study, arguing that its noise would harm marine mammals. Ultimately, the research team agreed to a government scientist’s recommendation that the safety zone around the survey be expanded to 7 km, and the survey proceeded. It is time…
Following Copenhagen, Publications and Other Resources Available on Climate Change
Leading up to last December’s UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, a variety of institutions published reports on the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of climate change, as well as strategies for addressing those impacts. A list of (mostly) new publications is below, adapted from one published last month by Marine Ecosystems and Management (www.MEAM.net), the sister newsletter of MPA News. Although not all of these publications and other resources focus specifically on MPAs, their lessons are applicable to the MPA field. General sources The Ocean and Climate Change: Tools and Guidelines for Action (2009, IUCN) http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/the_ocean_and_climate_change.pdf Managing Our Coastal Zone…
Notes & News
Correction Due to an editorial error, the name of the Swiss watch manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre was misspelled in our November-December 2009 issue. As mentioned in the article “New Coordinator of World Heritage Marine Programme Describes Plan Forward”, Jaeger-LeCoultre is providing financial support to the UNESCO World Heritage Marine Programme. Recap: MPA News webinar on high seas MPAs MPA News and the EBM Tools Network co-hosted a webinar on 16 December 2009 on strategies and technologies for developing MPAs and MPA networks in the open ocean and deep sea. A recording and transcript of the webinar, as well as recordings and transcripts…
MPA Tip: On setting up a monitoring plan
The LMMA Network is a group of practitioners – including traditional leaders, conservation staff, university researchers, and others – working to improve locally-managed marine areas in the Indo-Pacific through the sharing of experiences and resources (www.lmmanetwork.org). The Network recently released The LMMA Network Community Storybook featuring lessons and experiences gathered at a network-wide meeting held in November 2008. It offers an array of useful tips on initiating planning processes, monitoring programs, and enforcement systems, among other subjects. The following advice on setting up a monitoring plan was adapted by MPA News from the Storybook, which is available at www.lmmanetwork.org/Site_Page.cfm?PageID=64. Tips:…
Seismic Surveys and MPAs: How Should Managers Address the Issue of Underwater Noise?
There has always been natural “noise” in the sea. Undersea volcanoes, for example, can produce extremely loud sounds – intense enough, hypothetically, to kill a man at close range (if the boiling water and lava did not get him first). The low-frequency vocalizations of some whale species are intense enough to travel 10,000 miles. But over the past 150 years, the noise levels in our oceans have increased significantly. This is due to human activity. The propeller noise from shipping has raised the baseline for low-frequency ambient ocean sound worldwide. There is noise produced by undersea construction, such as pile-driving…