Calling an action plan to action: Designing and implementing California’s Marine Protected Area Long-term Monitoring Program

Sara Worden, Becky Ota and Chenchen Shen, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, San Carlos, CA, Stephen Wertz, Amanda Van Diggelen and Kara Gonzales, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Los Alamitos, CA, Tammy Heizenrater and Lara Slatoff, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Monterey, CA, Elizabeth Pope and Mike Prall, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Eureka, CA

Background/Question/Methods
California is home to one of the largest ecologically connected marine protected area (MPA) networks in the world and is a pioneer in MPA science, design, and management. With the goal of protecting California’s diverse marine life and habitats, the State Legislature passed the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) in 1999, which required a redesign of the pre-existing patchwork of MPAs into a more cohesive, functional network. Implementation of the statewide Network was conducted sequentially across four coastal regions through a science-based, stakeholder-driven process. The lead managing agency, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), leverages a comprehensive MPA Monitoring Program to identify research and monitoring priorities across the Network. Regional baseline monitoring characterized ecological and socioeconomic conditions across a suite of marine habitats and human communities near the time of MPA implementation, which concluded in 2018. Informed by both existing and emerging ecological and social science principles, CDFW, in collaboration with many partners including state and federal agencies, tribes, academic researchers, and non-profits, launched long-term monitoring across the Network. California’s recently adopted MPA Monitoring Action Plan (Action Plan) laid the groundwork for a scientifically robust and cost-effective monitoring program that reflects current scientific priorities and management needs.
Results/Conclusions
The resulting Action Plan identifies three core components to include in the design and implementation of a long-term monitoring program to effectively inform adaptive management and scientific priorities across California’s MPA Network: 1) Key marine species, habitats, human uses, and measures and metrics to focus data collection; 2) A tiered MPA site selection approach to balance cost-effective monitoring with scientific robustness; and 3) A suite of evaluation questions and objectives to guide data collection and analyses to examine efficacy of the MPA Network at meeting the goals and mandates of the MLPA. Implementation of the Action Plan prompted the state to invest $15 million in this first phase of long-term monitoring, representing one the most expansive monitoring efforts in marine ecosystems worldwide. With long-term monitoring now underway, CDFW is working with science advisors and partners to refine the Action Plan evaluation questions, identify critical knowledge gaps, and better integrate the ecological and human domains of the Network as a social-ecological system. Work to date will lay the foundation for California’s first comprehensive MPA Network evaluation and management review scheduled for 2022. California’s innovative approach has garnered the state international recognition as a leader in MPA science and management.