In the early days of ocean acidification research, experiments were simple, says benthic ecologist Jim Barry. Some involved plopping fish into containers of high-carbon seawater. This sort of lab test allowed researchers to observe animals’ physiological responses to our ocean’s changing chemistry.
These days, many studies attempt to address the more difficult question of how acidification and ocean warming might affect interconnected marine species. “What you can’t learn from tests of fish in a jar,” Barry says, “is how climate change affects the way energy moves through a food web.”
That line of inquiry may start in the pages of scientific journals, but it leads somewhere more intimate: our dinner plates.
Nominee Mary Sue Milliken serves Alaska Bairdi crab passionfruit aguachile at the Champions of Change reception.
This week, the White House named 12 “Champions of Change for Sustainable Seafood.” The awards recognize the people at the heart of America’s seafood industry—the fishermen, business owners, entrepreneurs, chefs and coastal leaders—who work tirelessly to support both the economic and ecological viability of our nation’s fisheries.
Monterey Bay Aquarium is pleased to count several of the winners and nominees among our Seafood Watch Business and Restaurant Partners, Blue Ribbon Task Force members and other collaborators. Working with Seafood Watch, they help raise consumer awareness about seafood sustainability and push for improvements in the supply chain.
Effective fisheries reform is no pipe dream. It’s happening now, and it works. According to a new study published in the scientific journal Oceanography, this approach is succeeding in the United States and Europe, where fish populations and ecosystems are returning to health. And, say the study’s authors, it can change the lives of small-scale fishermen and coastal communities around the world.
The key to success involves a combination of fishery management reforms, creation of science-based marine reserves and new avenues that give people who fish for a living an economic stake in good management.
It’s an approach that’s worked well in the United States, where overfishing has largely ended. In fact, a mere 2% of federally managed fisheries assessed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program are rated “Avoid,” and the program’s ratings for stock health indicate that U.S. law (the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act) is fundamentally succeeding at recovering fisheries.
The paper’s authors include Jane Lubchenco, former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Margaret Spring, the Aquarium’s vice president of conservation and science, and chief conservation officer.
Boats fish for squid with purse seine nets in Monterey Bay
“Too much of what we hear about the ocean is doom and gloom,” Spring said. “For all the challenges facing the ocean, there’s much to celebrate. We’ve worked for years with many colleagues to protect ocean ecosystems and to support sustainable fisheries management. It’s so gratifying to see that those approaches are making a real difference.”
And, she added, “If other countries embrace the policies that have succeeded so dramatically in the United States, we will see similar results.”
There are already many positive signs.
Europe has adopted more sustainable fishery management practices, and is already seeing positive results
Just over a year ago, the European Union overhauled its fishery policies to adopt many of the key elements that succeeded in U.S. fisheries. This includes a strong mandate to end overfishing, complete with teeth and timetables; scientifically determined catch limits; significant engagement of people in the fishing industry in the decision-making process; and the option of using rights-based approaches to fishery management, giving fishermen a stake in the future. Rights-based fishery management has been particularly successful, when combined with the first three elements.
“It was a key factor in the rapid turnaround of the West Coast groundfish fishery, which went from economic disaster to Seafood Watch best choice in just 15 years,” Spring said.
Marine protected areas, too, have demonstrated their value in study after study around the world. When there are networks of protected areas – including waters that are off limits to fishing – species inside a reserve become more diverse and more abundant, grow larger and produce more offspring. Some of this increased bounty spills over to areas outside the reserve.
In California, the Aquarium championed creation of a science-based marine protected areas that is beginning to demonstrate these sorts of results, Spring said.
Reference:
Barner, A.K., J. Lubchenco, C. Costello, S.D. Gaines, A. Leland, B. Jenks, S. Murawski, E. Schwaab, and M. Spring. 2015. Solutions for recovering and sustaining the bounty of the ocean: Combining fishery reforms, rights-based fisheries management, and marine reserves. Oceanography 28(2):252–263.
Conservation & Science 