In this presentation, I will explore the place of MPAs in Canadian fisheries management and will make three main suggestions:

• MPAs should be used as a tool for fisheries management in the face of uncertainty,
• MPAs should otherwise be regarded as one of a number of tools available to fisheries management and should only be used when they are the "best" way to achieve management objectives, and
• The entire EEZ should be managed as a "Protected Area", within which different restrictions would apply in various zones and some particular (highly restricted) zones would be declared as MPAs.

Definition of MPA

Short-term closures of certain areas, such as those that now apply to most Atlantic Canadian groundfish resources, are an appropriate and sometimes necessary emergency management measure. They are also a conventional tool of fisheries management which should not be confused with the emerging idea of MPAs.

Seasonal closures of particular areas have been termed "MPAs" by some. Yet they too are well-known fishery management tools and have only secondary effects on elements of the marine ecosystem other than resource species. (It will do little for benthic habitats, for example, if bottom fishing gear is excluded from an area for a few months each year when that area is heavily dragged during the rest of the season.) Thus, there seems little advantage in broadening the definition of MPAs to include seasonal closures².

There have even been suggestions that a series of "MPAs" could be opened to fishing in rotation, allowing sedentary resources to be produced in a protected setting and then exploited when the area is opened - essentially creating an endless series of "pulse fisheries". This too is an established, though rather uncommon, fisheries management technique, known simply as "rotation management". Regarding the various areas in such management as "MPAs" seems likely to cause only confusion.

The draft Oceans Act clearly distinguishes between MPAs and the established methods of fishery resource conservation and habitat protection. I recommend that that distinction be maintained, even when MPAs are considered as fishery management measures.

MPA Objectives Outside the Fisheries

• Protection of rare or otherwise special species (e.g. right whales)
• Protection of examples of particular habitats (cf. terrestrial protected areas)
• Protection of submerged historic sites (particularly shipwrecks)
• Provision of ecological research facilities, especially for studies of benthic ecology
• Provision of recreational areas (usually for shallow-water SCUBA-diving tourism)

These objectives are closely similar to those underlying most national park programs on land. They are all valid and important concerns for public policy which should be addressed by the Government of Canada. However, none of these objectives offer direct benefits to the fisheries. Some (particularly the ecological research) may create indirect benefits for them and MPAs designed to meet any of these objectives may have unintended benefits of various kinds. Nevertheless, MPA programs focused on any of these objectives should not be expected to offer much benefit to the fisheries.

Indeed, by limiting or preventing fishing activity in extensive sea areas, such MPAs can be expected to have significant negative effects on fisheries. Where other policy concerns may properly over-ride fisheries issues, MPAs may be appropriate but they should then be acknowledged as harmful to fishing interests, which may deserve compensation for lost opportunities.

MPAs as a Fisheries Management Tool

If the area of the MPA was previously a preferred fishing ground, the industry will be compelled to compensate for loss of access by fishing in places where its costs are higher (assuming that the former fishing grounds were, in some sense, socio-economically optimal). Thus, the net increase in available biomass must be great enough to offset this extra cost before such an MPA could be regarded as a desirable fisheries management measure.

This external biomass increase obviously requires that part of the resource flows out of the MPA in some way. (Closing all of 2J3KL to cod fishing is a necessary emergency measure. If that closure were maintained indefinitely, however, it might result in a rich population of northern cod but those fish would rarely leave the closed area and so would not be available to any fishery.) Supplying a resource to fished areas also requires, of course, that the MPA is capable of enhancing resource production within its boundaries. That it will only do if the resource animals spend much of their lives within protected waters. (Closing the Hell Hole to tuna fishing, for example, would serve little purpose. The fish would certainly swim out of the closed area quickly, becoming available to the fishery, but they would spend so little of their lives within it that it would do little or nothing to affect biomass levels³.) For an MPA to return benefits to the fishery, therefore, it is critically important that its size, location and borders are appropriate to the particular biology of the resource and technology of the fishery that it is designed to enhance.

In some cases, particular features of the resource or fishery can serve to define clear and appropriate borders for us. In other cases, we face a very intricate problem which requires far more knowledge of the resources than we presently have. Selecting the borders of a fishery MPA may be the greatest problem confronting the use of MPAs as a fishery management tool.

Defining the Problems

Once the problems have been identified, we must determine solutions and then select among the various options for achieving those solutions. If the problem is seen to be low juvenile survival, as a result of incidental destruction by fishing gear, the solution would clearly be to prevent that destruction. We would still need to pick among the tools at our disposal: an MPA covering the nursery area, an increase in mesh size, restrictions on some types of fishing gear, introduction of "conservation technology" modifications to that gear, and so on. The choice should presumably be based on grounds of efficiency and efficacy (in their widest senses), perhaps modified by equitability.

Understanding the Biology

We would also need to understand how the resource will flow out to fished areas outside the MPA. Among other mechanisms, this might be achieved by:

• The migration of maturing juveniles from an MPA nursery ground to the adult, fished grounds,
• The drift of planktonic eggs and/or larvae, produced by spawning adults within an MPA, to settlement sites on the fished grounds, or
• The slow movement of adults from an over-populated MPA to the fished grounds, as they search for food or living space.

Whichever of these forms of "flow" is expected, before drawing MPA boundaries, it will be essential to know its amount, plus the direction and distance that the fish or larvae will move.

Understanding the Fishery

Ideally, we would be able to acquire sufficient understanding of both the industry and its resource to predict, with useful precision, the result of establishing an MPA. In managing real fisheries, that will rarely be possible and the choice of an MPA as the "best" management tool, along with that of the boundaries to use, will have to be a matter of judgement. Indeed, very often our knowledge is insufficient even for that -- and therein lies the principal value of MPAs to fisheries management.

MPAs as a Precautionary Measure

Thus, the primary reason for establishing fishery MPAs is that they can set aside areas of the ocean where the natural resource production processes can continue, even if all human attempts at fisheries management go completely wrong⁴. Whether seen in terms of a "hedge" against uncertainty or of reserving some minimum-acceptable part of the ocean ecosystem beyond human interference, such "precautionary" MPAs should probably play a major part in Canadian marine fisheries management in the early 21st century.

The greater the uncertainty confronting fisheries managers, the greater the need for such MPAs. Indeed, our present lack of useful knowledge is so severe that a strict interpretation of FAO's draft Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries could lead to the complete closure of all fishing grounds. That is clearly not an acceptable option. It does mean that appropriate "precautionary" MPAs should be selected through wise judgement, seeking to balance the exclusion of the fishing industry from productive grounds with the need to ensure the continued productivity of those grounds, all without usefully precise information on the industry or its resources -- a form of decision-making for which the FRCC was designed.

If we truly knew nothing of our fisheries resources, it would be sufficient to declare a large part of the ocean as "precautionary" MPAs and then to trust to luck -- less reliance on "luck" requiring either larger MPAs, and so smaller fisheries, or else some knowledge with which to reduce our uncertainty. In reality, we do know something and could quickly and cheaply learn more. Blind selection of "precautionary" MPAs would, therefore, be inefficient. The size and location of such MPAs should be selected using some approach to the process outlined for "deterministic" MPAs, though the final decision will have to be a matter of judgement within a fog of uncertainty⁵.

How Might a Fishery MPA Work?

Support Effective Spawning

It may, therefore, be desirable to adopt management techniques that protect some quantity of multi-year spawners (while still also protecting juveniles) and ensure that a proportion of the recruits survive long enough to enter this protected class. These objectives can be achieved by various means (including "slot limits" on fish lengths) but, for some species, "spawning reserve" MPAs are certainly a viable option. This supposes, of course, that the MPA is sufficiently large, relative to the annual movements of the species in question, for the closure to provide effective protection for the adults within its border. It also supposes that the offspring of those adults will recruit to fished areas outside the MPA. Since most marine resource species have planktonic eggs and/or larvae, this latter condition will usually be met -- provided that the MPA's boundaries are appropriately drawn.

One case for which such an MPA has been seriously suggested is the Bay of Fundy scallop resource. This is certainly recruitment-limited and there is some reason to think that that recruitment is itself limited by low spawning stock biomass. Because of the low movement of adult scallops (along with the low age at recruitment to the fishery, coupled to the high rates of fishing mortality on fished beds), closure of a "spawning reserve" MPA should produce major increases in egg production within the protected area⁸. Most of these eggs would settle as spat outside the reserve's boundaries, provided that the MPA was not excessively large. For this to be beneficial to the fishery, however, (1) the MPA must be large enough and contain rich enough scallop beds that the increase in (fertilized) egg production there is significant in terms of the overall size of the resource and (2) the MPA must be situated up-current of potential fishing grounds, such that the spat it produces can settle, grow and be fished.

"Spawning reserve" MPAs may increase the production of viable, fertilized eggs to a greater extent than they enhance SSB and population fecundity if:

• The spawning fish are vulnerable to disturbance (e.g. of their mating behaviour) by fishing activity,
• Effective egg fertilization requires high adult densities (as may occur with sedentary species such as clams),
• The eggs themselves are liable to destruction by fishing gear (as may occur with such bottom spawners as herring, capelin, lumpfish or whelks), and/or
• The condition of the seabed influences mating behaviour or egg survival and fishing gear can damage the bottom.

In the first and third of these cases, a seasonal closure of the spawning ground might be a preferable alternative to, and just as effective as, a year-round MPA. In the first, third and fourth, it might be sufficient to exclude only certain gear types from the "spawning reserve" MPA.

Enhance Juvenile Survival

Maturing juvenile fish naturally move from their nursery areas to their adult habitat -- the fishing grounds (a movement known as "denatent migration"). Thus, the "flow" of resource out of such an MPA is assured -- provided that the area closed does truly represent a nursery for grounds elsewhere. Well-defined, inshore nursery areas are known for some European resources and for some in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Bight. Unfortunately, few Atlantic Canadian marine fishery resource populations have nursery grounds clearly separated from their adult habitat. Thus, it may not be easy to design effective, efficient nursery MPAs for this area -- protecting juveniles would be straightforward, if the MPA were large enough, but ensuring that they eventually recruited to the fished grounds would not be.

Export Excess Adults

An MPA based on this mechanism would differ from a nursery MPA since the area closed would necessarily be part of the adult habitat (though it might also have to include the corresponding nursery area, if the biomass within the MPA were to increase). It would differ from a spawning reserve MPA in that adult fish, rather than larvae, would be expected to flow out of the closed area. With this form of "flow", MPA size would be crucial since too small an area will prevent the local increase of biomass while too large a one will limit outward movement (by lowering the perimeter-length : enclosed-area ratio).

Whether reef fish reserves based on this principle actually work is currently a matter for scientific debate. (There is some evidence that fish actually migrate into the MPAs, avoiding disturbance caused by fishing activity outside.) With the more-mobile species primarily fished in Atlantic Canada, such a reserve would have to be very large if it was to allow a biomass increase within its boundaries. It is not known whether or not the rate of resource flow out of such a large MPA would sustain increases in resource availability on the fished grounds sufficient to compensate for loss of access to the closed area. For the principal Atlantic Canadian resource species, that seems unlikely.

Protect Habitat

Marine ecosystems are predominantly influenced by conditions and events in the water column. Away from the coast, this water is usually safe from significant degradation, other than by such factors as global warming and long-range transport of pollutants (plus, perhaps, offshore hydrocarbon development). MPAs and other forms of local habitat management would have little effect on these factors, which could only be controlled⁹ through high-level government commitments to sustainable development throughout the global economy. Indeed, MPAs are singularly useless in the face of widespread impacts like global warming.

Benthic habitats are a different matter. It is still unclear how much, if any, influence such habitats have on the production of our major fishery resources. It is also unclear to what degree various human activities impact negatively (or indeed positively¹⁰) on the seabed/fish relationship. In contrast to the water column, however, the primary anthropogenic impacts on these benthic habitats are local and (on most commercial fishing grounds) are caused by the fishery itself. To the degree that fishing (or other offshore activities) do negatively affect the seabed, and to the degree that that negatively impacts resource production, closing sea areas to fishing should, therefore, improve that production¹¹ or at least prevent further degradation.

Such a closure, of course, need only relate to those types of fishing gear (or other activities) that cause the impacts on the bottom. Conversely, it would have to be a year-round closure; it is unlikely that habitat damage could recover during a closed season.

In evaluating these impacts on the seabed, it should be remembered that the juvenile stages of some resources may have very different relationships with the habitat than the adults do. For example, it has been suggested that young gadoids require the "cover" that abundant attached benthos provides, in order to evade predators. Equally, there is some reason to think that young scallops preferentially settle on bryozoan colonies, which are of no value to adult scallops and which are destroyed by scallop dragging.

It should also be remembered that MPAs designed to protect fish habitat might not supply any of the resulting resource production to fished areas. Without some clear understanding of how that production will "flow" outward (through larval drift, denatent migration or adult movement), it would be misleading to suggest that such an MPA will benefit the fisheries. Unlike some other MPA mechanisms, however, habitat MPAs could be of considerable benefit even if they were much smaller than the migratory circuits of the species they are designed to enhance -- if fishing feeding is greatly enhanced in areas of protected habitat adjacent to fished areas.

In coastal waters, of course, there is a much wider range of negative anthropogenic impacts on both the seabed and the water column, most of them land-based. Declaring MPAs in such areas might well be an appropriate way to focus public attention on these impacts, thus bringing existing habitat protection legislation to bear and limiting everything from road construction to effluent outfalls. To the extent that particular resources use such coastal areas, such MPAs should aid the fisheries, at the expense of other parts of the national economy.

Since our greatest present uncertainty surrounds the ecosystems that support fishery resources (rather than the single-species biology of the resources), "precautionary" MPAs should probably emphasize habitat protection. Since any human activity might have a negative impact on local habitats (e.g. by selectively removing large predators, disturbing bottom sediments, creating "acoustic pollution"), these MPAs may require complete or near-complete closures, rather than permitting selected types of fishing or other activities.

Protect Resource Genetics

While a system of MPAs might be designed to protect the genetic diversity within some stocks, this does not appear to be a very practical option -- too many small MPAs would be required. A spawning reserve MPA might ensure that future reproduction was dominated by individuals that had not been exposed to the selective effects of fishing -- though only if the spawners more-or-less remain within the MPA throughout their fishable lives. If those spawners are themselves the offspring of MPA-protected adults, this could prevent (and might even reverse) any genetic effects of that selection. It seems unlikely to do so, however, unless the majority of all future recruits to fished areas were spawned within reserves.

All suggestions of genetic benefits from MPAs should be carefully examined by qualified population geneticists, whose mathematical models seem often to reveal counter-intuitive results.

MPAs as Enforceable Management Measures

MPAs in a Co-Management Context

As our fisheries move towards co-management, with its promise of self-enforcement of agreed management measures, there will be potential for establishing many, small MPAs by local agreement. This might well be a key to the successful management of some coastal resources. Indeed, some of the most successful existing coastal MPAs began as "voluntary marine reserves" in much this way (though sometimes without the co-operation of commercial fishermen)¹².

It should not need to be said that MPAs, along with all other ocean (and terrestrial) management measures, should be introduced and maintained in a co-operative management environment. At the very least, this must be founded in industry/stakeholder consultation. To the greatest degree possible, the stakeholders should share in real authority over these management measures.

Secondary Fishery Benefits from MPAs

• MPAs used for ecological research may lead to improved fishery management,
• Coastal MPAs may provide educational opportunities through which many people, both within and outside the fishing industry, could come to a greater understanding of marine resources and their conservation,
• MPAs and MPA management may focus public attention on the resources and their habitats, leading to more appropriate fishery and habitat policies, and to less damaging behaviour by fishermen and other groups, and
• Local management of coastal MPAs may give fishermen and their communities experience in co-operative management, which could later be used in co-management of the fisheries.

A Warning

Yet, as experienced fishery managers know all too well, the fishing industry usually resists having its effort limited and, in doing so, resorts to every legal (and some illegal) means at its disposal. One tactic that has been used repeatedly (and is being used now by New England groundfish fishermen to avoid Amendment 7) is to advocate some alternative management measures (which will not have much impact on effort levels) and to suggest that those measures would be adequate for conservation. MPAs and other closures have long been favourite proposals. Inevitably and no matter how ineffective it may be, once such a measure has been introduced everyone waits for a few years before taking the next difficult decision -- while fishing effort continues to rise year by year. This cannot be an acceptable basis for fishery management.

Canada now has long, and not unsuccessful, experience of effort limitation in most of our fisheries. (It has not been limited to a sufficiently low level but that is a separate problem of political will.) This has taught us that, while such limitation remains the primary concern, alone it is not sufficient for effective management. For some fisheries, MPAs appear to be a valuable supplementary management tool. Even if they are needed and used as such, however, MPAs must never be allowed to be treated as an alternative to real and effective limitations on fishing mortality. They are not, and must not be allowed to appear as, a way for the fishing industry to escape the painful necessity to restrict its activities to sustainable levels.

MPAs in the Canadian Context: A Suggestion

Meanwhile, international protected-area management concepts are changing. In the past, protected conservation areas (on land as well as in the sea) have often been quite small, perhaps designed to preserve some fragment of natural habitat or the few individuals of an endangered species. This approach is now seen as inefficient, since most natural systems are dependent on a wide surrounding area; the ecosystem of the protected fragment cannot function when its surroundings have been heavily modified by mankind. This is true on land but it is far more so in the sea, since water is an exceptionally efficient transport medium. It is, for example, impossible to protect part of a river estuary if human activities throughout the river's watershed continue without restriction. Similarly, to protect fully the ecosystem of one part of the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, we might need to protect the entire Magdalen Shallows and Northumberland Strait, plus Sydney Bight and the Laurentian Channel as far as Banquereau (to which key fish populations migrate in the winter) -- while also controlling activities throughout the Laurentian Great Lakes drainage to prevent excessive pollution or runoff diversion.

These concerns have recently led some MPA proponents to call for very extensive protected areas, within which there would be a number of zones -- some open to most human activities, some off-limits to anything by environmental monitoring and most with intermediate controls. Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has been managed in such a way for many years, with apparent success.

In Canada, the federal government already has most of the legal powers required to set up such an extensive Protected Area and will acquire the rest under the Oceans Act. Indeed, our entire EEZ is already "managed" under various environmental regulations. Foreign mercantile shipping, for example, is required to meet Canadian environmental standards before entering our waters; ocean dumping is strictly controlled; offshore hydrocarbon exploration and development is tightly regulated; and, of course, the fisheries are subject to perhaps the most comprehensive management regime operated by any national.

If the future of MPAs lies in zonal management of large ocean areas, if the success of our fisheries requires wide-spread conservation of the resources and their supporting ecosystem, and if the Canadian government has the jurisdiction for such management throughout the EEZ, would it not be best simply to treat the entire EEZ as an MPA and proceed with zoning that would define areas needing particular kinds of protection? This would amount to little more than the status quo, though it would be a re-vitalized status quo. In addition to past and present ocean management measures, we would need to:

• Declare a few, relatively small MPAs with strict access restrictions, where such are required for non-fishery purposes (e.g. whale sanctuaries),
• Close such other areas to fishing as will best enhance the fisheries in the areas left open, if this is judged the most appropriate form of management for particular resources (e.g. scallop spawning reserves), and/or as "precautionary" MPAs,
• Strengthen all forms of environmental and conservation controls throughout the EEZ, in keeping both with our current realization that past controls have been inadequate and with the EEZ's new status as a large-scale MPA (e.g. tighten controls on tanker navigation and coastal development),
• Introduce zonal management throughout the EEZ, thus recognizing that activities (e.g. oil exploration or bottom dragging) which are acceptable in some areas may not be in others and applying that recognition in future management, and
• By multi-lateral and bi-lateral agreement as appropriate, or by uni-lateral action if necessary, extend this management regime into contiguous waters beyond our EEZ such that the entire northwest Atlantic ecosystem (or as much of it as influences our waters and their resources) enjoys an appropriate level of protection.

Summary

1. There are several justifiable reasons for establishing MPAs but, unless the protected areas are specifically planned as "fishery MPAs", such closures are unlikely to generate net benefits to the fisheries. Other forms of MPA may have very significant negative effects on the fisheries.
2. To be effective, a fishery MPA must not only lead to increased biomass within its boundaries but must also export substantial amounts of biomass and/or recruitment to fished grounds. To do so, its size, location and boundaries must be carefully matched to the biological characteristics of the protected resources and to the technical characteristics of the fishery for them.
3. Fishery MPAs should be seen as fisheries management tools. They should be employed where they appear to be the "best" way to meet management objectives.
   
   • The question should not be "Are MPAs useful in fisheries management?" but rather: "What are the problems confronting management? Which tools will best solve those problems?"
4. When considering the use of a fishery MPA, mangers should start by understanding the fishery and the biology of the resource. They should draw MPA boundaries that will meet management objectives, under the constraints set by the fishery and by resource biology. They should impose such restrictions on activities within the MPA as are needed to achieve the objectives. Other activities should not be restricted.
   
   • In some fishery MPAs, it may only be necessary to restrict certain fishing techniques or fishing for particular species. Other MPAs, with other objectives, may require prohibition of any kind of fishing (and most other human activities besides). Again, the focus should be on MPAs as tools.
5. One objective for which fishery MPAs appear well suited is a precautionary, and ecosystem-oriented, approach in the face of uncertainty. Considering our lack of firm understanding of our fisheries resources and their ecosystems, it might be prudent to place substantial areas off-limits to all fishing (and most other) activity.
   
   • Since "precautionary" MPAs are specifically required where knowledge is lacking, their location, size and boundaries can only be based on wise judgement, not on deliberate design. However, such MPAs will only generate direct benefits for the fisheries if their boundaries do match the characteristics of the particular resource and its fishery. Thus, all such knowledge as is available should be used in making the required judgements.
6. When their boundaries are appropriately drawn, fishery MPAs will work by one or more of five mechanisms:
   • Protecting a spawning reserve,
   • Protecting a nursery area,
   • Protecting an area with high population density from which adult fish move outward,
   • Protecting habitat (usually benthic habitat) which enhances fish production and/or survival, and/or
   • Protecting desirable genes within the exploited population.
7. While fishery MPAs can be valuable, they will always remain an inefficient tool for tackling the primary task of fisheries management, viz. : limiting fishing effort and fishing mortality. The proper use of fishery MPAs must never be allowed to expand into an excuse to avoid the effective effort limitation.
8. Optimal management of Atlantic Canada's fisheries resources requires wide-area habitat and resource-conservation management. The federal government already has, and exercises, legal authority for such management throughout the EEZ. Rather than concentrating on small MPAs with specific purposes, the fisheries would be better served by strengthening fisheries and environmental management throughout the EEZ, while also introducing a zonal approach that would allow different restrictions to apply in different areas.

Footnotes