Ocean science and conservation, like any human enterprise, is subject to its fair share of internal messiness from time to time.  As someone whose expertise and experience intersects several discrete domains (coral reefs, sharks, marine protected areas, and policy), I’ve witnessed plenty of dust-ups, arguments, and spats over the years.  And this week’s flurry of discussion instigated by a New York Times editorial on ocean protected areas is just the latest kerfuffle. In his op-ed, Bigger Is Not Better for Conservation, coral reef scientist and California Academy of Sciences curator, Dr Luiz Rocha, argues that large-scale, remote marine reserves are a disservice to ocean conservation.  It’s Dr Rocha’s perspectives, however, that seem more damaging.

Rocha’s argument hinges on four key points:

1. The current tally of big, remote marine reserves is in low-conflict, easy to protect (ie, low-hanging fruit) areas of the ocean where human reliance upon them is negligible and therefore government willingness to protect is strong;
2. There’s nothing worth protecting in these big, remote areas;
3. More important, smaller, near-shore ocean areas with high levels of human use are in dire need of protection;
4. Marine protected areas should be science-based (eg, protected zones should be guided by “sustainable catch limits” of commercially targeted species).

Let’s go one-by-one to see if any of these points hold water. [Note: For the sake of brevity, I’ll be using the acronym MPA frequently in this piece for “marine protected area,” but it will also serve as shorthand for “marine reserve,” “protected area,” “locally managed marine area,” or “marine managed area.”  I recognize that an MPA may not be managed or enforced, but let’s forego that technicality for the moment.]

POINT 1: “Big MPAs are easy and less consequential.”
As of today, there are approximately 20 large-scale protected areas across the ocean (ranging from tens-of-thousands to millions of square kilometers in protected area).  This includes a range from the Marianas Marine National Monument’s 16,400 square kilometers to the 1.15 million square kilometers of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i.  These MPAs may consist of fully-protected, no-take (no fishing/extraction) designation to protection that still allows multiple uses.  According to the folks at MPA Atlas, there are approximately 15,000 small, coastal MPAs around the world.  Some of these, like Cordelia Banks off the island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras, encompass only 17 square kilometers.  Many are even smaller.  Totaling all of the massive/remote and small/near-shore MPAs together gets us to approximately 2% of the ocean under some form of protection.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, held in Hawai’i in September 2016, called for member nations to set aside “30% of each marine habitat” in “highly protected MPAs and other effective area-based conservation measures” by 2030, with the ultimate aim being ”a fully sustainable ocean, at least 30% of which has no extractive activities.”

For rhetorical effect, I’ll reiterate that as of March 23, 2018, only 2% of our global oceans is protected, and 2030 is only twelve years away.

As someone in the MPA biz, I can testify that there are at present a small handful of big, deep-pocketed, international NGOs working on big international MPAs: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International, Oceana, and National Geographic. These folks have the gravitas, influence, and resources to capture heads of state attention and convene forums necessary to get things done.  You can bitch all you want about the pros and cons, but this is the reality.  Alongside the big NGOs, there are tens-to-hundreds of small to medium-sized NGOs that are working simultaneously on everything from big/remote MPAs to smaller/near-shore MPAs.  Sometimes the big NGOs work in concert with the smaller ones.  Sometime not.  It’s all site dependent.

Having worked on everything from massive MPAs to tiny MPAs over my career, I can say that none of them were “easy wins.”  So-called “low hanging fruit” may represent a unique opportunity in time.  You may have a receptive government or local community that welcomes the process.  It’s always easier to work with the willing than the resistant.  But every MPA effort in which I’ve participated involved strategy, identifying champions, public consultations, negotiations, community organizing, building political will, battling nefarious characters, rebooting strategy, sweating-out votes, and of course finding funds to support all of this.  If there are “easy wins” out there, big or small, I sure would appreciate someone pointing me in that direction.

Protecting big/remote areas or smaller/near-shore areas is not an either/or game.  This is not a binary proposition of doing one or the other.  It’s a yes/also.  We need to protect small, not so small, medium, larger, big, bigger, and massive tracts of the ocean.  We need to protect what is easy to protect, and what is harder to protect.  We must gather every bit of low-hanging fruit, and plan to reach the currently out-of-reach fruit.  MPAs occupy a spectrum or continuum, and we need to be prepared to work with everything along that spectrum.  Some NGOs will have a mandate (and talent) for pursuing big swaths of ocean.  Others are more tuned to work on local needs.  But there is a lot of real estate between the biggest and smallest MPAs for organizations, individuals, and yes, even FUNDERS to find their niche.

POINT 2: “There’s nothing worth protecting.”
This is just wholesale wrong.  What is Rocha considering as “worth” protection?  Certainly, there are species whose entire life cycle may be captured by the boundaries of an MPA.  Other species may only spend a portion of their lives within the boundaries of protection.  Protected areas are designed to factor in these variables.  But not all MPAs are envisioned around biological significance alone.  The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in North Carolina, the very first marine national monument designated by the United States in 1975, honors the historic significance of the shipwreck of the famed Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor.  Similarly, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the entire Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including the 110 seamounts, open waters, and all life in that area are considered biocultural resources and linked to the Hawaiian people through environmental kinship.

The ocean as a cultural seascape is vital to Hawaiian identity, their being, and essential dimension to their cognitive understanding of the world.  The ocean waters in Papahānaumokuākea were an ancient pathway for a voyaging sphere that occurred between this region and the main Hawaiian islands for over 400-500 years (ca. AD 1300-1800).  The practice of traditional wayfinding and voyaging—recently popularized in the film Moana and which is one of the most unique living traditions of the world—requires protection of the entire marine environment and open waters, not just the islands and reefs, because it relies on biological signs and natural phenomenon, such as winds, waves, currents, and the presence of marine life and birds at key moments and locations.

At the same time as Papahānaumokuākea was successfully expanded in 2016 by President Obama, the State of Hawai’i also supporting the establishment of small, coastal community-managed makai areas, driven by and for the community.  Yes, both can happen at the same time and using the same human capital, as many of the same people fought for both the small makai areas and the big Papahānaumokuākea effort.

POINT 3: “There are more important, smaller places to protect.”
Importance is relative and subjective.  It is place-driven and context-heavy.  What is important to someone in Brazil, might be less so to someone in Hawai’i.  So instead of casting stones at our neighbors, perhaps we should recognize that there are seriously limited resources, conservation bandwidth, and political will, and try to triage our priorities.  I recognize that the reality is that not all NGOs/organizations like to play-well together.  Furthermore, some places and approaches are simply not tenable due to practical considerations and political and social realities.  Again, this is a reality of modern conservation.  But as I mention above, effective MPAs do not occupy one half of a binary state.  It’s not either small or large.  Remote or near-shore.  Fully managed/enforced or paper parks/un-enforced.  Every single MPA in existence occupies a position somewhere along a continuum of effectiveness.  Even an un-managed, unfunded, and unenforced MPA is a work in progress along that continuum.

POINT 4: “They’re not science-based.”
Science should help inform MPA zoning and designation.  No questions or arguments here.  But the science needed may at times be incomplete or lacking.  Many decisions around the world, particularly in developing nations, on “sustainable catch limits” are not acted upon because data is deficient.  Should we be expected to wait for the science to be decided and settled (whatever that might mean) before action/conservation measures can be activated?  And science is but one arrow in our quiver that we should use to scope, establish, and manage MPAs.  The social sciences and economics are also driving MPA priorities and planning.

Finally…
I find an editorial like Rocha’s to be, quite frankly, dangerous.  Staking-out a claim on one side of a false dichotomy or constructing straw man arguments is the purview of graduate school.  I get it… Rocha would like to see more love shown to near shore/coral reef areas (including where he has worked in Brazil).  But what is the benefit to conservation as a whole to publish these half-baked propositions that large, remote MPAs are a waste of time in the pages of The New York Times and under the banner of an august and internationally recognized organization like the California Academy of Sciences?  We are not currently living in normal times, and this sort of rhetoric plays right into the hands of those keen to see less ocean protection, not more.

For the first time in US history, an administration is rolling back protections on national monuments, both land and sea.  Australia just this week has announced the possibility of cutting in half the protections for the Coral Seas MPA.  Conservation in one place in the ocean is not the enemy of conservation in another place.  And MPAs are not a binary switch of either big or small…  Local or remote…  Fully protected or not.  If we are going to get to the IUCN recommended target of 30% of our oceans under strong protection by 2030, we need to ramp up protections everywhere along the MPA continuum.  Yes/Also should become our mantra!  We must embrace a process of continuous improvement in our MPA work, not display a reflex of undercutting other conservation efforts.  And we need to keep our focus and attention on the real threats to a healthy ocean: over-fishing, illegal fishing, pollution, climate change, and lack of political will for action.

The post Embracing Yes/Also: Marine Protected Areas Are Not An Either/Or Proposition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Coral reefs are in crisis. They are fragile. They are complex. And they are disappearing faster than we are able to understand them.

This threat is exacerbated by an ecological battle raging on reef lines between corals and seaweeds. When fish are removed, seaweeds run rampant, and corals suffer. This negative feedback loop is often mitigated with the implementation of Marine Protected Areas (MPA).

Essentially….Save the fish, Save the world coral.

MPAs globally are established on the premise that they will not only protect critical reef habitat, but also act as a source for larval export to surrounding regions. This is known as the spillover effect and it represents a central tenet in the creation and management of these areas.

However a seminal study, out today in Science, demonstrates that coral and fish larvae can actually distinguish the differences between protected areas and degraded ones on the basis of the reef’s chemical scent alone.  Resounding larval choice for healthy reefs puts into question the validity of the critical “spillover” process for these areas.

Exploring three different marine protected regions off the Coral Coast of Fiji, Dr. Danielle Dixon and her team were able to provide outstanding evidence in laboratory flume studies for the case that when coral and fish larvae are given the choice between water taken from an MPA and that of a non-MPA (representing healthy and degraded reefs) that they will chose the former. Over and over and over again. This pattern held true for three different coral species (genus: Acropora) and 15 species of reef fish spanning multiple families and taxonomic groups.

As if that was not remarkable enough, this larval behavior is dependent on the presence of cues stemming from certain coral and seaweed species in the water. For instance, they discovered that larval fish prefer water treated with corals that are more susceptible to stress over those that are less. With presence of more susceptible corals on a reef being a good indication of a healthier area where such sensitive corals may persist. Furthermore, larvae were able to distinguish between different types of seaweed cues.  They found larvae dissuaded more by the scent of seaweeds that had a higher likelihood of blooming then those that might not necessarily take over a whole reef. A seaweed-dominated reef not exactly representing good habitat for a baby fish and especially a baby coral.

Once Dixon and Co. had discovered these trends in the lab, they wanted to corroborate these findings in the field, a truly monumental task. Using special tiles to track where larvae landed in both MPAs and non-MPAs, these researchers found that although larvae were present in the non-MPAs, they were not settling there. Conversely, larvae were found settled in abundance within MPAs.

Undoubtedly, the ability of fish to find a healthy habitat to call home is critical, even more so for corals that are unable to move after they settle.  This study is the first to establish that fish and coral larvae can smell the difference between MPAs and non-MPAs and are actively choosing to settle in a more suitable, coral-filled habitat over one that is dominated by noxious seaweeds.

Due to the fact that the reefs surrounding these MPAs have degraded beyond an unknown tipping point, connectivity between areas is minimal, and spillover does not appear to be occurring. This does not in any way mean that Marine Protected Areas are not working to their intended purpose, quite the contrary. They are most definitely effective. However, with this knowledge we are now aware that they just might not be enough. Managers must look into ways to enhance the “Call of the Reef” or the good smelling corals that attract settlers and decrease the tremulous odor of algal domination to help guarantee a better future for reefs everywhere.

Reference:

Dixson et al., “Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery.” (August 2014,Science). http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/892 

The post What the "Call of the Reef" is Telling Us first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In January 2009, a reserve was set up in South Africa to benefit the endemic black-footed penguin*. While a reserve may be set up with a specific goal or species in mind,  they are static boundaries that encapsulate everything that lives in or passes through it. It was unclear how the penguins would respond to the reserve as they are a highly mobile top predator and their prey (sardines and anchovy) are even more mobile and migratory. Additionally, their prey are also fished by humans, directly in competition with the penguins.

The authors collected data in Spring 2008 prior to the reserve’s establishment and approximately a year later during Spring 2009 after the reserve was closed to purse seine fishing for 4-6 months. Data were collected in the reserve site (St. Croix Colony) and at a nearby site that was open to fishing the entire time (Bird Island). Purse seine vessels were monitored via satellite for compliance.

What was interesting is that none of the diving metrics differed between years or colonies, such as dive time and depth and penguin body mass. What did change was trip behavior. The figure at left shows the density of foraging dives pre (top) and post (bottom) reserve establishment. Trip length, trip duration, and maximum distance from colony were significantly less between years and between colonies.

What does this mean for the penguins? Penguins are expending less energy traveling for food after their breeding season, saving up to 43% of the daily energy expenditure! This is presumably because there are more fish in vicinity since purse seiners are not competing for resources with the penguins, evidenced from data between colonies post-MPA.

It will be interesting to follow these colonies to see if the MPA ends up recruiting more penguins into St. Croix colony due to the foraging success of its current inhabitants. With prey not as limiting a resource, density dependent effects, i.e. overcrowding, might be a concern in the future. There could also be spillover effects from the MPA. More fish in the MPA might mean more fish overall in the region and nearby unprotected colonies and fishermen may both reap the rewards.

*Disclaimer: I used to take of black-footed penguins at Monterey Bay Aquarium and am immensely biased in this report. Go Penguins!! :)

Pichegru, L., Gremillet, D., Crawford, R., & Ryan, P. (2010). Marine no-take zone rapidly benefits endangered penguin Biology Letters, 6 (4), 498-501 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0913

The post Penguins Immediately Benefit From MPA first appeared on Deep Sea News.