PS 9-83 - How well-managed Exclusive Economic Zones can help conserve marine ecosystems

Monday, August 15, 2022

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT

Located in: ESA Exhibit Hall

Presenting Author(s)

Veronica Relano

PhD Researcher
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries - University of British Columbia, Spain

Coauthor(s)

DP

Daniel Pauly

University Killam Professor & Principal Investigator, Sea Around Us
Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries - University of British Columbia, Canada

Background/Question/Methods

In the last decades, several targets for marine conservation were set to counter the effects of increasing fishing pressure, climate change impacts, and pollution. Measures included protecting 10% of the sea by 2020 and establishing Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas (LSMPAs), for example.

Using the ‘reconstructed’ catch data for 1950 to 2018 made available by the Sea Around Us initiative, we show that the declaration and enforcement of exclusive economic zones (EEZs) could have a much bigger impact on marine conservation than LSMPAs while being a tool to protect marine biodiversity and effectively contribute to international targets. Here, we compare fishing intensity for different commercial marine species in Pacific EEZs with a no-take or multizone LSMPA.

Results/Conclusions

We found that making use of the range of regulations available within EEZs, such as banning foreign fishing, may reduce catch much more than a subsequent LSMPA declaration. In Pitcairn and the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, the establishment of EEZs had a strong effect on fisheries, directly and substantially reducing foreign industrial fishing. While in the Galapagos Islands and New Caledonia, neither EEZ nor LSMPA establishment resulted in changes in the total catch.

This confirms that well-enforced EEZs allow for effective governance and protection of marine resources. We also show that allowing fishing in an MPA, while politically convenient, may result in ‘paper parks’ within which fishing can cause the same deleterious effects as in wholly unprotected areas.

This research adds another layer of knowledge to advance the use of more comprehensive data to consider more integrated management with stricter regulations and proper enforcement in multizone MPAs and EEZs. Irrespective of areas’ designated status, i.e. EEZs, MPAs or others, the right provisions for monitoring and enforcement can have substantial ecological and social benefits.