When various
conservation organizations began pushing the concept of marine protected areas
(MPAs) back in the late 1990s, I didn’t like the idea at all.
Back then, the MPAs
being proposed were, with few if any exceptions, so-called “ocean wilderness
areas” where no consumptive activities, including catch-and-release fishing,
would be allowed. Advocates of such MPAs often said that they wanted to lock up
20% of our coastal waters, without much thought as to why or whether any
particular place should be placed off-limits to fishing of any kind.
I still believe that
the arbitrary creation of ocean wilderness areas is a bad idea.
It has become a cliché in the conservation community that “You only conserve what you love, you
only love what you know, and you only know what you are taught.” Yet however clichéd that statement may be, I
believe that it applies to marine conservation. I also believe that the best
way to get large numbers of people to know, and ultimately to love, the marine
environment is to take them fishing.
I believe that no-take
marine reserves, which by their nature deny people a hands-on familiarity with
marine resources, are, in the long run, counterproductive.
Yet I still support MPAs, because the term “marine protected
area” encompasses a lot more than no-fishing zones. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has embraced a broad definition of “any area of the marine environment that
has been reserved by federal, state, territorial, tribal, or local laws or
regulations to provide lasting protection for part or all of the natural or cultural
resources therein” as an MPA.
Thus, the gear restricted areas (GRAs)
established by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which
prohibit small-mesh trawls that threaten the survival of juvenile scup, can be
considered a sort of MPA. So can the groundfish closed areas up in New England, where cod, haddock and
other species may be caught on hook and line, but not by non-selective otter trawls.
Yet too many times,
anglers who are quick to support such restrictions are also quick to say that
they oppose MPAs. It is time for them to rethink that opposition.
While MPAs that
arbitrarily close sections of ocean to all fishing activities are usually a bad
idea, those that are tailored to address a specific problem or protect a particular
resource can be extremely beneficial to anglers.
Nothing is more
important to anglers than an abundance of mature fish. That being the case,
MPAs that protect important spawning and nursery areas are a clear benefit to
recreational fishermen.
Thanks to the GRAs established in the
mid-Atlantic, anglers fishing between New Jersey and Massachusetts
are enjoying a spectacularly good scup fishery. Abundance is more than 200% of the
target level; and many of the scup being caught are the sort of
large, mature fish that are characteristic of a healthy population.
The South
Atlantic Fishery Management Council recently asked the National Marine Fisheries
Service to designate five areas between North Carolina and the
Florida Keys as “Spawning Special Management Zones”(SMZs). Within
the SMZs, which range from 3 to 5.1 square miles in size, bottom fishing and
anchoring would be prohibited. However, nothing would prohibit anglers from
trolling for billfish, tuna, dolphin or other pelagic species in the upper
portion of the water column.
The SMZs are intended
to protect fish belonging to the snapper/grouper management complex, and so
increase recruitment. Such increased recruitment should result in more fish
being available to anglers outside of the SMZs, and better assure that such
fish will remain abundant well into the future.
MPAs can also be used to protect unique habitats. Off the coast
of New England, fragile deep-water corals remain vulnerable to the effects of
trawls and other bottom-tending fishing gear. Additional perils are posed by
the possibility of energy exploration and development efforts. To prevent
damage to the corals, a number of conservation groups are urging the President
of the United States to declare certain seamounts and
submarine canyons as a National Monument.
Although such corals
are located more than 150 miles from shore, where little fishing takes place,
fishermen are expressing concern that they will be excluded from any monument
that may be created.
The American Sportfishing
Association, which represents the recreational fishing industry, claims that
conservation groups are trying to turn the proposed national monument into a
no-fishing zone, and argues that recreational fishing should not be
banned in the event that such monument is created. Unless some connection can
be drawn between angling and potential damage to corals, that’s not an
unreasonable position.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission)
also believes that fishing should be permitted, so long as it doesn’t threaten
the corals. However, at the request of its American Lobster Management Board,
it has also sent a letter to the White House.The Commission noted
“If the President chooses to use the Antiquities Act to protect
deep sea corals, the Commission requested that the designated area be limited
to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the
objects to be protected. Additionally, the Commission requested the area be
limited to depths greater than 900 meters and encompass any or all of the
region seaward of this line out to the outer limit of the exclusive economic
zone.”
The speed with which the Commission jumped on the issue, in an
apparent attempt to protect the incomes of a handful of lobstermen who fish
near the edge of the continental shelf, was a marked contrast to the glacial
progress that it has made in adopting regulations to address the collapse of
the southern New England lobster stock. Although in 2010 biologists advised the Commission
that the stock was experiencing recruitment failure, and that
harvest should be sharply curtailed if not suspended, measures to effect such
recommendation have not yet been adopted.
Such indifference to
scientists’ advice has also hindered the use of MPAs for research purposes.
Two or three years ago, biologists proposed the creation of a habitat research “reference” area
on New England’s Stellwagen Bank, where all fishing for groundfish
would have been prohibited, although fishing for tuna and other pelagic species
would still have been allowed.
The depletion of many
species of New England groundfish has been a persistent problem for fisheries
managers. The proposed reference area, planned to encompass 55 miles of ocean
bottom, would have given biologists the opportunity to separate the impacts of
fishing from other factors affecting groundfish populations, and so provide
fisheries managers the insight needed to craft more effective regulations.
Recreational fishermen and the charter boat fleet mounted a fierce opposition to the
groundfish closure, although a lot of their objections didn’t seem
to make sense.
One charterboat captain who, according to the news website South
Coast Today, “makes a living chasing tuna,” complained that, “I
can’t go feed my family—that’s what you’re telling me. You’re cutting me off
from the only thing that I know how to do.” Yet the proposed closure wouldn’t
have affected tuna at all.
Another fishermen called the proposed
reference area “a playground for scientists,” and said that, “We have a plethora of
regulations and no way down the line to tell whether it worked or not.” He also
opposed the closed area, even though it would have provided a way for managers
to better determine whether fishing needed more — or perhaps could be allowed
to have less — regulation.
In the end, such
opposition convinced the New England Fishery Management Council not to move
forward with the proposal.
Fishermen often have
that sort of reaction to proposed MPAs: a knee-jerk belief that MPAs are all
bad. When talking about no-fishing zones, they may be right. But when talking
about targeted MPAs, designed for a particular purpose that will, in the end,
lead to better angling, fishermen should rethink their position.
Properly-designed MPAs
can provide more fish, and better fishing, for everyone, without shutting down
any part of the sea. When fishermen oppose MPAs of that kind, the question
isn’t whether they’re willing to rethink their position, but rather whether
they’re thinking at all.
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