Spatial marine zoning for fisheries and conservation

Protected areas are an effective tool for reducing biodiversity loss. Current legislation distinguishes various types of marine protected areas, each allowing different levels of resource extraction. However, almost all of the theory for spatial conservation planning is focused on identifying no-take reserves. The current approaches to zoning for multiple types of protected areas could result in suboptimal plans in terms of protecting biodiversity and minimizing negative socioeconomic impacts. We overcame these limitations in the first application of the multizone planning tool, Marxan with Zones, to design a network of four types of protected areas in the context of California's Marine Life Protection Act. We have produced a zoning configuration that entails mean value losses of less than 9% for every fishery, without compromising conservation goals. We also found that a spatial numerical optimization tool that allows for multiple zones outperforms a tool that can identify one zone (ie marine reserves) in two ways: first, the overall impact on the fishing industry is reduced, and second, a more equitable impact on different fishing sectors is achieved. Finally, we examined the tradeoffs between representing biodiversity features and impacting fisheries. Our approach is applicable to both marine and terrestrial conservation planning, and delivers an ecosystem-based management outcome that balances conservation and industry objectives

Marxan with Zones: Software for optimal conservation based land- and sea-use zoning

Marxan is the most widely used conservation planning software in the world and is designed for solving complex conservation planning problems in landscapes and seascapes. In this paper we describe a substantial extension of Marxan called Marxan with Zones, a decision support tool that provides land-use zoning options in geographical regions for biodiversity conservation. We describe new functions designed to enhance the original Marxan software and expand on its utility as a decision support tool. The major new element in the decision problem is allowing any parcel of land or sea to be allocated to a specific zone, not just reserved or unreserved. Each zone then has the option of its own actions, objectives and constraints, with the flexibility to define the contribution of each zone to achieve targets for pre-specified features (e.g. species or habitats). The objective is to minimize the total cost of implementing the zoning plan while ensuring a variety of conservation and land-use objectives are achieved. We outline the capabilities, limitations and additional data requirements of this new software and perform a comparison with the original version of Marxan. We feature a number of case studies to demonstrate the functionality of the software and highlight its flexibility to address a range of complex spatial planning problems. These studies demonstrate the design of multiple-use marine parks in both Western Australia and California, and the zoning of forest use in East Kalimantan

User Guide: Applying Marxan with Zones: North central coast of California marine study

We describe the operation of the 'Marxan with Zones' software (Watts et al. 2008 in prep, Klein et al. 2008) on a Marine planning problem for the north central coast of California, USA (Klein et al. 2008 in prep). 'Marxan with Zones' is an adaptation of the 'Marxan'software (Ball & Possingham 2000, Possingham et al. 2000). Operating the software involved a series of steps, including; framing the problem definition, calibrating the input parameters, validating the correct operation of the software, and generating robust results. These steps were performed for each of our planning scenarios, illustrating best practices for 'Marxan with Zones'. The software used for running 'Marxan with Zones' and performing calibration, validation, results analysis and explorative data analysis was 'Zonae Cogito' (Watts et al. 2008 in prep)

Spatial marine zoning for fisheries and conservation

Protected areas are an effective tool for reducing biodiversity loss. Current legislation distinguishes various types of marine protected areas, each allowing different levels of resource extraction. However, almost all of the theory for spatial conservation planning is focused on identifying no-take reserves. The current approaches to zoning for multiple types of protected areas could result in suboptimal plans in terms of protecting biodiversity and minimizing negative socioeconomic impacts. We overcame these limitations in the first application of the multizone planning tool, Marxan with Zones, to design a network of four types of protected areas in the context of California's Marine Life Protection Act. We have produced a zoning configuration that entails mean value losses of less than 9% for every fishery, without compromising conservation goals. We also found that a spatial numerical optimization tool that allows for multiple zones outperforms a tool that can identify one zone (ie marine reserves) in two ways: first, the overall impact on the fishing industry is reduced, and second, a more equitable impact on different fishing sectors is achieved. Finally, we examined the tradeoffs between representing biodiversity features and impacting fisheries. Our approach is applicable to both marine and terrestrial conservation planning, and delivers an ecosystem-based management outcome that balances conservation and industry objectives

Marzone and its application to California's marine life protection act initiative

Working in collaboration, Ecotrust, the University of Queensland, and the University of California have developed components for a spatially explicit tool that will allow science-advisors to design and evaluate the performance of Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks in the context of the California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA). In 2005, the state's Department of Fish and Game created an Initiative to implement a network of MPAs inside state waters based on the best available science. This Initiative was first implemented in the Central Coast of California, between Pigeon Point and Point Conception, and will continue to the north and south coasts through 2010

Participatory socioeconomic analysis: drawing on fishermen's knowledge for marine protected area planning in California

The purpose of this pilot study was to test the utility of geospatial analysis tools for eliciting and integrating fishermen's1 knowledge into marine protected area (MPA) planning processes in California, United States. A participatory design yielded 30 local knowledge interviews that were coded for socioeconomic and biodiversity information. The resulting information is useful in understanding past conflicts around MPA siting proposals and for identifying likely sources of agreement and disagreement. Products include a protocol for rapid socioeconomic assessment; a database of fishermen's knowledge and information; and a geographic information system for further use in California's MPA planning process.Marine protected areas Local knowledge GIS Decision-support Fishery management