MPA News
Reader Feedback on the Re-opening of Closed Areas
The September 2000 issue of MPA News featured an article on the concept of rotating closed areas: that is, alternately closing and re-opening areas to fishing, allowing time for stocks to rebuild after each open season. With managers and researchers around the world beginning to consider the idea, it could represent an emerging trend in fisheries management. MPA News asked readers to comment on the idea. Below, we’ve printed three of the letters we received. The first is from Graham Edgar, who was quoted in the September article. Dear MPA News: I would like to comment further on the benefits…
MPA Update: Race Rocks to Become Canada’s First Official MPA
On September 14, Canada’s minister of fisheries and oceans endorsed a plan that will make the waters surrounding Race Rocks, a small nine-islet archipelago, the first official marine protected area in Canada. Commercial fishing and most sport fishing will be off-limits in the MPA, which will measure a little less than one square mile, or 2.6 sq. km, in area. Race Rocks is located on the southernmost end of the nation’s Pacific coast (MPA News 1:8). Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) designated Race Rocks in 1998 as one of several “pilot MPAs”, part of a strategy to determine…
Re-opening Closed Areas: A New Tool for Balancing Consumption, Conservation?
The consumptive use of wild species is an important aspect of the relationship between humans and the marine environment. For consumption to be sustainable, its conditions must be consistent with conservation. As one way of fostering those conditions, the concept of rotating closed areas — alternately closing and re-opening areas to fishing, allowing time for stocks to rebuild after each open season — has gained the recent attention of some fisheries managers. In the northeastern US scallop fishery, for example, areas that have been closed for half a decade were re-opened this summer for huge catches; the fishery’s managers are…
Case Study: Merging Traditional Conservation With Modern Techniques in Yemen
Home to hundreds of terrestrial and marine species found nowhere else in the world, the small Yemeni archipelago of Socotra has a new zoning plan that integrates the protection of its land and sea environments. Developed through the cooperative efforts of international experts and local stakeholders, the plan aims to ensure the health of Socotra’s biologically significant ecosystems while allowing residents to preserve their traditional resource rights against outsiders. The plan features new protected areas, on land and in coastal waters. Although the concept of “protected area” is still relatively new to residents of the isolated archipelago, the idea of…
New Law in Mexico Could Lead to More No-Take Zones
In Mexico, a new law has incorporated legal tools to allow the establishment of no-take zones in the country’s marine and freshwater bodies, in wetlands, and within the 20-meter federal coastal zone. The General Wildlife Law, passed by Congress in July 2000, has the effect of balancing federal fishery regulations set in 1999, which implemented a predominantly production-centered view of Mexico’s marine resources. Under the General Wildlife Law, the Secretariat of the Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) may now establish what are called “aquatic species protection areas” — no-take zones, essentially. These areas may be established to protect: All…
The “New” Economics of Marine Reserves: What MPA Practitioners Need to Know
The economic study of no-take marine reserves is evolving. Ten years ago, economists largely examined such reserves from the vantage of the fishing industry, and were generally skeptical of their justification. Now, armed with models that are increasingly informed by fish stock biology and concerns about uncertainty, economists are forging a new understanding of the economic and societal values involved in the practice of reserves. Experts gathered last month in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), to discuss new trends in the study of marine-reserve economics. The conference, “Economics of Marine Protected Areas,” sponsored by the Fisheries Centre of the University of…
New Approach for Measuring the Performance of MPAs
Often, the reasons for establishing a marine protected area are to protect a resource or ecosystem while providing various social and economic benefits, among them increased fishery catches. As more MPAs are designated around the world, the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of these areas in meeting their policy objectives becomes increasingly important. Jackie Alder of Edith Cowan University (Australia) has suggested that there is an urgent need for useful approaches capable of measuring MPA performance. In a paper she co-authored and delivered last month at the “Economics of MPAs” conference in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), Alder stated, “An assumption…
Courses Provide Training for Managers in Caribbean, Western Indian Ocean
Spurred by concerns that many MPA managers are insufficiently trained to provide effective resource protection, two projects on opposite sides of the world have begun preparing practitioners to handle the challenges of planning and management. Organized in the Caribbean and the Western Indian Ocean, the capacity-building projects have combined classroom-style lecture courses with discussions, field trips, and networking opportunities. [For a description of project funders and organizers, see box at end of article.] Training the trainers The training course for the ongoing Caribbean project aims primarily to instruct managers who will in turn train local personnel in MPA management. This…
International MPA Plans Are Emerging Slowly, Amid Obstacles
Despite the international distribution of many marine ecosystems, efforts to provide international management plans for them have been slow in coming. Transboundary ecosystems have generally received piecemeal protection at most, with only rare efforts by planners to coordinate conservation efforts across political lines. Ecosystems on the high seas have received virtually no protection, save for the UN-sponsored multilateral agreement to protect Antarctic waters. The challenges involved in international environmental protection are numerous, with political, legal, and social obstacles. Nonetheless, several recent efforts have emerged with regard to establishing international MPAs. Such efforts indicate what the future might hold for the…
News Update: Tortugas Planning Process to Wrap Up Public Comments
New Feature: We’ve created a new feature to provide updated information on previous articles. Below is an update of the lead story from our first issue (July 1999, MPA 1:1). The period for public comment will end July 31 on a proposal to create a no-take “ecological reserve” in the Tortugas area of the US Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS). That date will mark a milestone in the long process to create a system of no-take areas in FKNMS, an MPA notable for its active commercial and recreational fishing industries. The final plan, incorporating public comments, will be produced…