Rigorous Fisheries Management a Better Option than More MPAs

By Innocent Dwayi

Late last year, Emeritus Professor Doug Butterworth sparked a debate when he asked the question: “How indispensable are marine protected areas for protecting South African marine environment?” Butterworth’s piece, published in Fishing Industry News in November, was followed by commentaries from Peter Mbelengwa, Craig Smith and Kate Handley, Jack Walsh and Mike Bergh. 

Bergh’s detailed analysis concluded that “the claim that marine protected areas (MPAs) are indispensable for the sustainability of fisheries is questionable”. Very importantly for the fishing industry, Bergh’s piece emphasised the need for consultation at a very early stage, including whether South Africa should make binding commitments to MPA targets without proper scientific justification. He refers, of course, to our country’s commitment to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes a goal to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 (cleverly captured in the slogan “30×30”). 

With just five years to 2030, the push to dramatically grow South Africa’s MPA footprint as a means of meeting the commitment to the Global Biodiversity Framework will presumably start to escalate. 

The South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association (SADSTIA) will resist this push because it believes that rigorous fisheries management is a far better option for South Africa than more, or bigger, MPAs. The Association has compelling reasons for its standpoint. 

1. Climate change is driving most of the change in the oceans – not fishing. A paper published in the prestigious journal Nature in 2019 found that the scope, magnitude, footprint and cumulative impacts of human interactions with the oceans have changed over time; today climate change drives most of the change in the oceans. At both coastal and global scales, increases in the frequency of high sea surface temperature events, ocean acidification and rising sea levels are causing most of the change that is taking place in the oceans. Shipping, organic chemical pollution and nutrient pollution from land-based sources, as well as some forms of fishing, are also having impacts but these are far outweighed by climate change (Halpern et al., 2019). 

2. MPAs cannot safeguard marine ecosystems from climate change. This was demonstrated in a 2020 study of an MPA on the west coast of the United States which found that fish communities inside the protected area were just as vulnerable to the effects of marine heatwaves as those outside. The researchers recommend that resource managers who want to preserve biodiversity in a changing climate will “need to consider additional management tools and strategies in combination with protected areas to mitigate the effect of warming on marine communities” (Freedman et al., 2020). 

3. When fisheries are properly managed, they are sustained.  Although fish populations are still declining in some parts of the world where management is poor (FAO, 2022), in many regions rigorous fisheries science and improved governance have led to stock recovery, improved catch rates and enhanced profitability for fishing industries. At the same time, scientists are starting to disprove the notion that declining fish populations cannot be rebuilt without closing off large areas of the ocean to fishing (Hilborn et al., 2020). Fish stocks can rebuild quickly because fish have evolved to reproduce quickly. The key to sustainably managed fisheries is to follow the science-to-management blueprint, which includes stock assessments and understanding the biology and population dynamics of the target and incidentally caught species, their impact on the ecosystem (other sensitive species and habitats) and effective administration and compliance. 

At present, only 4.4% of South Africa’s territorial waters are open to trawling. Since 2008, ring fenced trawl grounds have ensured that SADSTIA members and their counterparts in the South East Coast Inshore Fishing Association (SECIFA) only trawl on historically used grounds, thereby preventing damage to lightly trawled areas and preserving natural refuges for hake. Trawling outside the ring fenced zone requires the completion of an environmental impact assessment.

SADSTIA and SECIFA have also participated diligently in government-led efforts to protect areas that are important for biodiversity, including the process to define the boundaries of 20 MPAs that were declared in 2019. Subsequently, the associations have agreed to the establishment of several seabed management areas that protect vulnerable marine ecosystems. 

As the map shows, SADSTIA and SECIFA members already respect the boundaries of 12 MPAs situated inside the ring fenced trawl grounds. 

South Africa’s ring fenced trawl grounds are indicated in green. Twelve MPAs are situated inside the ring fenced trawl grounds. These are indicated in orange. Deep-sea and inshore trawlers are prohibited from fishing in these MPAs. Indicated in purple are the MPAs that are situated outside the ring fenced trawl grounds. Image: Nozipho Mkhabela, I&J. 

SADSTIA’s resistance to the creation of more or larger MPAs, its data-proven concerns about the impact of climate change and the vital role of sound fisheries management is shared by other sectors of the  South African fishing industry.

An increasing number of studies demonstrate that MPAs enhance fisheries abundance inside their borders, but abundance still declines outside. This is because virtually all fish are highly mobile and fishers follow them outside the protected area where they catch the same number but at greater cost. Both Butterworth and Bergh make this point in their contributions to Fishing Industry News. Fishing effort is displaced, not reduced, potentially resulting in greater habitat impacts and more incidentally caught bycatch. 

While fishing impacts on stocks and on trawlable habitats have been demonstrated to be reversible with good management, this is unlikely with heavy forms of pollution and climate change. Experience in the Northern Hemisphere, e.g. with the Gulf of Alaska king crab (Bechtol et al., 2009), St Paul and St Matthew’s blue king crab, Pribilof Islands’ blue king crab (Stockhausen, 2017), Pacific cod and Bogoslof pollock (Bailey, 2011) has demonstrated that climate change and large, abrupt, persistent changes in the structure and function of ecosystems (regime shifts) can upset historic harvest levels. 

Scientists are learning that climate change may require a change in expectations for species that are most vulnerable and that even the most restrictive management measures – fishery closures, for example – may not result in a return to pre-climate change catch levels, e.g. in the case of the Walleye Pollock in the Aleutian Basin (Bailey, 2011). A South African example is the Agulhas sole, stocks of which have continued to decline despite very conservative allowable catches being set. The cause of decline has not yet been confirmed by strong evidence, but anecdotal evidence suggests a link to climate change and the damming of rivers. The role of mud deposits in sustaining sole populations is likely to be crucialbecause there is a correlation between the decline of mud deposits and the decline in populations of Agulhas sole. 

SADSTIA’s view is that instead of looking to MPAs as a solution, fisheries managers should focus on creating robust, data-rich management structures that provide flexible and adaptive responses to climate change impacts (the opposite of static area closures).

MPAs are not a solution for ineffective management

Importantly, MPAs should not be a substitute for poor management.Rather than striving to meet the 30×30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework, SADSTIA advocates for investments in stock assessment surveys, science-based fisheries management and for government and industry to work together constructively for the benefit of the environment, the economy and society. 

The use of MPAs in fisheries should be limited to areas or fisheries which cannot be managed in any other way. The views of a northern European fisheries association are pertinent in this regard: 

“Large-scale use of MPAs may be appropriate if you have very data-poor fisheries and fishing grounds. In such a situation a good level of precaution can be achieved without knowing too much about ecological status and your own impact. It is a blunt tool (and there is nothing wrong with that if that is what the job requires). However, when you have a sophisticated science and management system, with stock surveys, ecosystem monitoring, seabed mapping, vulnerable marine ecosystem protection and gear regulations, etc., it is simply the wrong tool. The consequences of using this blunt tool for a sophisticated job most importantly leads to increased fishing effort to catch the same amount of food, leading to increased carbon emissions, increased habitat impact in areas outside the MPA, and increased costs”. 

SADSTIA is taking a scientific approach to MPAs and the Association has provided unequivocal support in instances where there have been clear and specific objectives for closing areas to fishing – such as spawning ground closures that may enhance recruitment. This is the case with the so-called “kingklip box”, which was introduced in 2008 to protect spawning aggregations of kingklip, a valuable bycatch of the trawl fisheries for hake. 

Despite such instances of constructive cooperation on MPAs, the overall rationale and strategy of the South African government on MPAs has not been communicated to stakeholders. To date, the fishing industry has been absent from discussions about the 30×30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework. 

As is the case in many other countries, environmental non-governmental organisations often set the scientific and political agenda in South Africa, but stakeholders that may be negatively affected by an increasingly strident 30×30 lobby are seldom consulted and eventually find themselves fighting a rearguard action. Genuine consultation with stakeholders should ameliorate such a scenario and Butterworth’s stimulation of the debate around MPAs and the role they can play in protecting South Africa’s marine environment is welcomed by SADSTIA. 

Innocent Dwayi is Chairman of SADSTIA

Additional reading : A sustainable fishery

South Africa’s deep-sea trawl fishery for hake provides an excellent example of how regular stock assessments and a science-based approach to fisheries management can establish and maintain the sustainability of an economically important fishery. Science-based management strategies were introduced to the fishery in the early 1970s. Catch rates increased gradually throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but in the early 2000s, the fishery again experienced a decline in catch rates, possibly as a result of several years of below average numbers of fish surviving to adulthood. The science-based management strategy that was introduced in 2006 aimed to restore the stock of deep-water hake to a level which could provide the maximum sustainable catch over a 20-year period, but this level was achieved five years ahead of schedule. Today, South Africa’s hake stocks are both certified as sustainable and well-managed by the Marine Stewardship Council.

A sustainable fishery results in real benefits: the hake deep-sea trawl fishery makes an R8.5 billion per year contribution to the South African economy and supports an estimated 6 600 direct jobswith regular wages and employee benefits. Provided it continues to be managed diligently in terms of the scientific recommendations, the fishery will continue to generate these benefits for generations to come. By far the biggest potential threat to its future is climate change.   

References

Abbott, J.K. & Haynie, A.C. 2012. What are we protecting? Fisher behavior and the unintended consequences of spatial closures as a fishery management tool. Ecological Applications, 22(3): 762–777. 

Bailey, K.M. 2011. An empty donut hole: the great collapse of a North American fishery. Ecology and Society, 16(2): 28. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art28

Freedman, R.M., Brown, J.A., Callow, C. & Caselle, J.E. 2020. Marine protected areas do not prevent marine heatwave-induced fish community structure changes in a temperate transition zone. Scientific reports, 10: 21081.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2022. The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2022. Rome, FAO.

Gallager, S. Lerner, S. & Fairclough, C. 2022. Impact of disturbance on habitat recovery in habitat management areas on the northern edge of Georges Bank: ecosystem perturbation experiment. NOAA-NMFS-NEFSC-2016-2004548. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and New England Fisheries Management Council.

Halpern, B.S., Frazier, M., Afflerbach, J., Lowndes, J.S., Michelle, F., O’Hara, C., Scarborough, C. & Selkoe, K.A.2019. Recent pace of change in human impact on the world’s ocean. Scientific Reports, 9:11609.

Hilborn, R., Amoroso, R.O., Anderson, C.M., Baum, J.K., Branch, T.A., Costello, C., de Moor, C.L., et al. 2020. Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status. PNAS, 117: 2218–2224. 

Hilborn, R., Micheli, F. & De Leo, G.A. 2006. Integrating marine protected areas with catch regulation. Canadian Journal of Aquatic Science, 63: 642–649. 

Stockhausen, W.T. 2017. Assessment of Pribilof Islands blue king crab. Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service. https://www.npfmc.org/wp-content/PDFdocuments/resources/SAFE/CrabSAFE/2018/5-PIBKC_SAFE_2018.pdf

Tran, M., Fay, G., Stewart, B.D. & Stokesbury, K.D.E. 2022. Resiliency of marine benthic communities in sea scallop rotational management areas on Georges Bank. Journal of Shellfish Research, 41(3): 301–309.