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Marine Protected Areas -- Let's Strive For A Win/Win Situation By Ronald Smolowitz The commercial fishing industry is very leery about the MPA concept because it seems to be targeting historic fishing grounds, rather than areas that are currently not fished. From a commercial fishing perspective, society would be much better off modifying marine habitat to maximize production of desired crops. We tend to forget that the land has been modified to yield a higher abundance of crops for food, fiber, construction, and fuel. I significantly alter habitat everyday with my farm tractor by tilling. Far from getting a macho feeling by burning fuel and destroying life forms, I get the satisfaction of seeing a whole new and more productive ecosystem arise from the barren soil. The Bible talks about letting land lie fallow on a rotational basis and that makes sense. Fishermen will buy into a rotational system on the fishing grounds, but this is different from an MPA. Rotational fishing grounds are a good place to begin to understand the impacts of letting marine grounds lie fallow. The more we improve our knowledge of producer ecosystems, the better able we are to maintain sustainable production of crops on even less ground. Higher productivity means less pressure to put more undisturbed ecosystems into production. Human society is built on the belief that modified ecosystems may be better and more efficient than natural systems. We are at a nascent stage in our understanding of marine ecosystem productivity. However, those that have been urging a precautionary approach to fisheries seem more than willing to run headlong into the unknown when it comes to MPAs. Enter MPAs MPAs have become popular now that President Clinton has decided to bypass the fishery management process. As I understand the function of an MPA, it is to provide some high degree of protection to a portion of the marine living resource ecosystem for a prolonged time period. Protecting biodiversity and complexity for their own sake appear to be the key goals for an MPA. For purposes of this discussion I assume an MPA is closed to all fishing for as long as it is an MPA. In my book it is not an MPA if you can go in and selectively remove certain species. Advocates are promising all sorts of benefits from setting aside MPAs. I don't think we know what the outcome would be over time. In the short term, closures of areas with harvestable biomass can be very costly to fishing communities and society in general. Creating MPAs outside of the fisheries management process is a big mistake. The fisheries management process is working to prevent overfishing, is reducing bycatch, and is protecting habitat. The Problem The MPA problem is simple: where should we site them and how much area should they encompass? One big area, two smaller ones, we have all heard the discussion. In a system that has designated Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) based on where fishing takes place -- the traditional fishing grounds -- there is going to be significant debate. Those that know of my writing, starting 20 years ago, realize that I have been a strong advocate for ocean zoning containing "no fishing" zones. I still am even in conjunction with my varied consultancies. My intensive attendance at habitat meetings has led me to understand that deciding what grounds to set aside to protect one productive ecosystem at the expense of another is a very complex question. Setting aside a unique ecosystem that is not of commercial interest is relatively easy in comparison. The Solution Here is what I would do to get the process moving as a win/win. The fleet has expanded outward from its traditional grounds due to shortages of fish and improvements in technology. There are still many places that are not fished for technical reasons. We know very little about some of these areas because we can't fish them. Some areas just contain too much "trash" or (to be more politically correct) benthic organisms to fish with current technology. Other areas are too hard -- an indicator of uniqueness. These areas should be the start of MPAs as they are the true "wilderness areas" of the shelf. The MPAs can then be expanded if needed by retracting the fleet back to the traditional, and potentially highly productive, fishing grounds. This can be accomplished by allowing more freedom to modify habitat in these fishing zones. Changes in fishing gear and harvesting practices will substantially improve the ability of different commercial fisheries to co-exist on the same grounds. Can this work? It is working despite the best efforts of some so-called environmental interests to stop the program. The scallop access program to the Georges Bank Groundfish Closed Areas is again demonstrating the positive benefits of rotational fishing. In the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area fishery, scallop fishermen are generally catching their allotted trips of 10,000 pounds of scallops with as little as two hours on bottom in a very confined area. They are being charged ten days fishing time; a time period in which their dredges would have typically spent more than 200 hours on the bottom, over a vast area outside the Closed Areas containing more complex habitat, to make the same catch. The fuel (energy) savings are immense. Set up opportunities like this and a lot of bottom does not need to be fished. In Summation What I am suggesting may not be perfect or necessarily even optimum; it is achievable. It would allow for sustained economic growth of the fishing industry as the stocks rebuild yet set aside an ever increasing amount of habitat as the industry prospers. I think it was Stephan Jay Gould that once said that wildlife and habitat can only be preserved if long-term economic and social benefits accrue; especially to those dependent on this environment for their survival. It is these fishermen that harvest these resources that are best equipped to conserve them now and into the future. Ronald Smolowitz is owner and operator of the Coonamessett Farm, a 20 acre organic farm on what was to be a 27 house subdivision. He was a NOAA Corps Officer from 1969 to 1989, spending most of his time on fisheries assignments. He has done a substantial amount of fishing gear design work including lobster trap escape vents, ghost fishing panels, large mesh cod ends, the NMFS scallop survey dredge, the NMFS clam survey dredge, large mesh twine tops, pop-off buoys, timed whale release, etc. He does consulting work for both environmental and fishing organizations and chairs the NEFMC Habitat Advisors. |