Show Me the Benefits: 10 Years in, What Have Marine Protected Areas Accomplished?

October 3, 2024 International, International News, National, Pacific

More fish, more sustainable fisheries, and an ecosystem better protected from threats was the promise of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) and the 124 MPAs now in place in California. Ten years on, what have they accomplished? The recently completed 10-year review by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as numerous scientific papers, suggest that our hopes were misplaced. The review concludes “statewide and regional trends across habitats showed no difference in biodiversity inside compared to outside MPAs.” As to the very real threats to California’s coastal ecosystems, climate change and recent marine heat waves, the review is decidedly not sanguine “analysis across habitats in the central coast revealed that MPAs did not provide strong resilience against the marine heatwave.” Ouch! Finally, there is not even evidence that there are any more fish in California state waters now, except for some of the areas that are closed to fishing. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:00

and an ecosystem better protected, by Ray Hilborn, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Marine Life Protection Act, more sustainable fisheries, MPA's

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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