The future of marine fisheries management and conservation in the United Kingdom: Lessons learnt from over 100 years of biased policy

Marine wild-capture fisheries depend on the capacity of the ocean to provide a flow of harvestable resources to sustain the industry. Paradoxically, conventional fishing often undermines these resources by degrading the environment and overexploiting fish stocks. Many UK fisheries have declined for over a century due to a biased focus on their social-economic value and lack of recognition that they are social-ecological systems and need to be managed as such. With the UK’s recent transition to an independent coastal state, the Fisheries Act (2020) and associated Joint Fisheries Statement provide an opportunity to correct this. Focusing on the ecological foundations, a more sustainable future for UK fisheries may be achieved by: (1) implementing a conservative quota setting system based on Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), defined as that which would occur when the biomass of a population of the target species is at 50% of that estimated at carrying capacity, to set catch limits rather than targets. The biomass of fish stocks should be allowed to regenerate to a minimum of 120% of that which will achieve MSY to provide a buffer against the uncertainty in ecological response to climate change. (2) Fishing capacity should be reduced while redistributing a greater share of the quota to sectors of the fleet that are demonstrably more sustainable; recognising that short term compensation may be required by some to mitigate the impacts of displaced activity until the benefits of stock recovery are realised. (3) Greater restrictions should be applied to ensure the most damaging fishing techniques (e.g. bottom trawling and dredging) are prohibited as appropriate in the network of marine protected areas. Protection should be enforced to promote the regeneration of degraded habitats and restoration of fish populations to help achieve the objectives as set out in the Ac

The future of marine fisheries management and conservation in the United Kingdom: Lessons learnt from over 100 years of biased policy

Many UK fisheries have declined for over a century due to a lack of recognition that they are social-ecological systems and need to be managed as such. With the UK’s recent transition to an independent coastal state, the Fisheries Act (2020) and associated Joint Fisheries Statement provide an opportunity to correct this. Focusing on the ecological foundations, more sustainable UK fisheries may be achieved by: (1) implementing a conservative quota setting system based on Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), defined as that which would occur when the biomass of a population of the target species is at 50% of that estimated at carrying capacity, to set catch limits rather than targets. The biomass of fish stocks should be allowed to regenerate to a minimum of 120% of that which will achieve MSY to provide a buffer against the uncertainty in ecological response to climate change. (2) Fishing capacity should be reduced while redistributing a greater share of the quota to sectors of the fleet that are demonstrably more sustainable; recognising that short term compensation may be required by some to mitigate the impacts of displaced activity until the benefits of stock recovery are realised. (3) Greater restrictions should be applied to ensure the most damaging fishing techniques (e.g. bottom trawling and dredging) are prohibited as appropriate in the network of marine protected areas. Protection should be enforced to promote the regeneration of degraded habitats and restoration of fish populations to help achieve the objectives as set out in the Act

Integrating climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation in the global ocean

The impacts of climate change and the socioecological challenges they present are ubiquitous and increasingly severe. Practical efforts to operationalize climate-responsive design and management in the global network of marine protected areas (MPAs) are required to ensure long-term effectiveness for safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. Here, we review progress in integrating climate change adaptation into MPA design and management and provide eight recommendations to expedite this process. Climate-smart management objectives should become the default for all protected areas, and made into an explicit international policy target. Furthermore, incentives to use more dynamic management tools would increase the climate change responsiveness of the MPA network as a whole. Given ongoing negotiations on international conservation targets, now is the ideal time to proactively reform management of the global seascape for the dynamic climate-biodiversity reality

Addressing Criticisms of Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas

Designated large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs, 100,000 or more square kilometers) constitute over two-thirds of the approximately 6.6% of the ocean and approximately 14.5% of the exclusive economic zones within marine protected areas. Although LSMPAs have received support among scientists and conservation bodies for wilderness protection, regional ecological connectivity, and improving resilience to climate change, there are also concerns. We identified 10 common criticisms of LSMPAs along three themes: (1) placement, governance, and management; (2) political expediency; and (3) social–ecological value and cost. Through critical evaluation of scientific evidence, we discuss the value, achievements, challenges, and potential of LSMPAs in these arenas. We conclude that although some criticisms are valid and need addressing, none pertain exclusively to LSMPAs, and many involve challenges ubiquitous in management. We argue that LSMPAs are an important component of a diversified management portfolio that tempers potential losses, hedges against uncertainty, and enhances the probability of achieving sustainably managed oceans

Evidence gaps and biodiversity threats facing the marine environment of the United Kingdom’s Overseas Territories

Understanding the evidence base and identifying threats to the marine environment is critical to ensure cost-effective management and to identify priorities for future research. The United Kingdom (UK) government is responsible for approximately 2% of the world’s oceans, most of which belongs to its 14 Overseas Territories (UKOTs). Containing biodiversity of global significance, and far in excess of the UK mainland’s domestic species, there has recently been a strong desire from many of the UKOTs, the UK Government, and NGOs to improve marine management in these places. Implementing evidence-based marine policy is, however, challenged by the disparate nature of scientific research in the UKOTs and knowledge gaps about the threats they face. Here, we address these issues by systematically searching for scientific literature which has examined UKOT marine biodiversity and by exploring publicly available spatial threat data. We find that UKOT marine biodiversity has received consistent, but largely low, levels of scientific interest, and there is considerable geographical and subject bias in research effort. Of particular concern is the lack of research focus on management or threats to biodiversity. The extent and intensity of threats vary amongst and within the UKOTs but unsurprisingly, climate change associated threats affect them all and direct human stressors are more prevalent in those with higher human populations. To meet global goals for effective conservation and management, there is an urgent need for additional and continued investment in research and management in the Overseas Territories, particularly those that have been of lesser focus

MPAs, fishery closures and stock rebuilding

Few regions on earth remain untouched by fishing activity. As such, effective longterm no-take marine reserves (NTMRs) and other area-based management systems that restrict fishing serve as vital reference areas for assessing the magnitude and recovery potential of marine ecosystems from human influence over both space and time. Much of the peer-reviewed literature and meta-analyses demonstrate variable but overall positive responses to such protection for fish and some other taxa. These include significant increase of stock species abundance and biomass within boundaries, cross-boundary spill-over of adults and larvae, and increased egg production. A reserve may meet its biodiversity objectives and contribute to fished stocks, however, determining the extent of that contribution depends on several factors. These factors include: understanding and monitoring the species biology, and the effectiveness of and compliance with management, and changes in fishing pressure external to the NTMR or other type of spatially-managed area from which some fishing activities are excluded. This presents significant data and cost challenges of scope, scale and monitoring method for assessment of NTMRs and fishery management throughout the, often extensive, range of the stock. The situation is one in which proof is hard to establish and absence of proof of effect is not proof of absence of effect (the issue of Type I and Type II errors in experimental design)

The social construction of performance-based design

textConstruction and operation of commercial and residential buildings in the United States have been identified as the single largest sector of energy consumption and contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Subsequently, buildings must be a primary target for reductions. From short-term incentives, to long-term milestones, building energy efficiency, specifically net zero energy buildings, have emerged as a significant and unprecedented objective for a variety of public and private organizations in the United States. Altering the practices of the building culture requires not only technological innovation, but also an understanding of how practitioners within the building culture see their role in transforming it. Consequently my research seeks to understand how building industry professionals comprehend their capacity to influence the cultural boundaries of their profession in order to account for and mitigate the impacts of energy and emissions in the built environment. Ultimately, this study is an investigation into the social construction of technological change. The AIA+2030 Professional Series offered by the Denver Chapter of the American Institute of Architects has served as the single case study for this investigation. By limiting local conditions to the Denver-based Series and defining advocates as the self-selected group of participants, I’ve narrowed this analysis to reflect a workable microcosm of practitioners who are committed to the investigation and integration of net zero energy design, construction, and building operation practices. In order to substantiate this empirical analysis, I employed a triangulated series of data collection and interpretation consisting of: participant observation, interviews, and a survey. Data analysis involved an iterative process of coding and categorizing the primary key words and themes that emerged throughout my investigation. Each of the perspectives offered during this investigation indicate that architects who are advocates of net zero energy building design perceive that consequential opportunities for fundamental change exist within the social and cultural facets of the building culture. Ultimately, by preferencing social and cultural activism over technological manipulation, these advocates have corroborated the notion that technological change is fundamentally rooted in social change.Architectur

Interactions of tuna fisheries with the Galápagosmarine reserve

The largest protected areas of any kind have all recently been established in the ocean. Since 2012, 5 protected areas that exceed 1 million km2 in size have been created, mostly in remote oceanic areas. The potential conservation and fisheries benefits of such reserves have been debated in the public, the media, and the scientific literature. Little is known about their effectiveness for com mercially valuable pelagic predators, especially for highly migratory species such as tuna and billfishes. Here we analyse the iconic Galápagos Marine Reserve, documenting interactions with and changes in associated tuna purse seine fisheries in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Using a combination of long-term onboard observer data and a novel data set of high-resolution, remotely sensed vessel tracks (Automatic Identification System [AIS]), we reveal progressive divergence of tuna fishing effort, catch, and catch per unit of effort (CPUE) trends in areas adjacent to the reserve from trends in the surrounding fished areas. Both data sets show a regionally unique hotspot of concentrated effort along the western reserve boundary now receiving \u3e4-fold greater fishing effort density than the rest of the surrounding area. These dynamic interactions of tuna purse seine fisheries with the Galápagos Marine Reserve suggest that the reserve might enhance fish stock availability to local fisheries and help to stabilize local catches despite overall decreasing biomass trends for these highly commercial tuna stocks

Improving Fishing Pattern Detection from Satellite AIS Using Data Mining and Machine Learning.

A key challenge in contemporary ecology and conservation is the accurate tracking of the spatial distribution of various human impacts, such as fishing. While coastal fisheries in national waters are closely monitored in some countries, existing maps of fishing effort elsewhere are fraught with uncertainty, especially in remote areas and the High Seas. Better understanding of the behavior of the global fishing fleets is required in order to prioritize and enforce fisheries management and conservation measures worldwide. Satellite-based Automatic Information Systems (S-AIS) are now commonly installed on most ocean-going vessels and have been proposed as a novel tool to explore the movements of fishing fleets in near real time. Here we present approaches to identify fishing activity from S-AIS data for three dominant fishing gear types: trawl, longline and purse seine. Using a large dataset containing worldwide fishing vessel tracks from 2011-2015, we developed three methods to detect and map fishing activities: for trawlers we produced a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) using vessel speed as observation variable. For longliners we have designed a Data Mining (DM) approach using an algorithm inspired from studies on animal movement. For purse seiners a multi-layered filtering strategy based on vessel speed and operation time was implemented. Validation against expert-labeled datasets showed average detection accuracies of 83% for trawler and longliner, and 97% for purse seiner. Our study represents the first comprehensive approach to detect and identify potential fishing behavior for three major gear types operating on a global scale. We hope that this work will enable new efforts to assess the spatial and temporal distribution of global fishing effort and make global fisheries activities transparent to ocean scientists, managers and the public