A marine protected area where fishing continues is a strange kind of protection.
Earlier this year, the world passed what sounded like an important milestone. Around 10% of the ocean had officially been designated as marine protected areas, moving governments closer to the UN-backed target of conserving 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030 (30x30). Then researchers looked at what was actually happening beneath the surface.
Only around 2% of the ocean appears to be covered by marine protected areas where ecosystems are recovering. The researchers estimated that only a 5th of the area covered by MPAs was “ecologically effective”, defined in their study as contributing to a doubling of fish biomass.
One major reason is hardly complicated.
People are still fishing there.
Few protected areas completely prohibit fishing, while restrictions elsewhere are poorly enforced. Lead researcher Ella Clausius described violations as so common that even compliance officers have been seen casting fishing lines from their boats. They know where the big fish are. We have somehow created a system where finding lots of fish inside an area supposedly established to protect them can make those same fish more attractive to people who want to catch them. The problem becomes clearer when protection comes into conflict with the assumed entitlement to fish.
Donald Trump’s executive order on recreational fishing directs federal agencies to prioritise recreational fishing while reconsidering some of the scientific standards and environmental regulations governing US fisheries. It tells the Commerce Department to review fisheries guidelines to ensure they sufficiently account for recreational fishing. Agencies are also told to suspend, revise or rescind regulations deemed to place excessive burdens on anglers, boaters and outdoor businesses. Fish live in these ecosystems. Sharks live there. Marine mammals live there. Yet regulations intended to limit what humans can do to them can be described primarily in terms of the “burden” placed on the humans trying to catch them.
The order becomes stranger still when fish escape. It establishes an “Interagency Shark and Pinniped Depredation Task Force” to address sharks and marine mammals taking fish from anglers’ lines. The taskforce is instructed to investigate barriers to shark fisheries, including international agreements and CITES listings. Consider what has happened there. A human catches a fish. A shark tries to eat the fish. The policy problem becomes the shark.
Andrea Treece of Earthjustice said the provision appeared aimed at loosening restrictions on the shark trade and warned that killing more sharks would be short-sighted. She noted that many US shark populations remain far below the levels seen before industrial-scale fishing expanded in the mid-20th century. Researcher Grace Casselberry also pointed to another explanation for increasing encounters between anglers and sharks: more people are recreationally fishing than ever before while some shark populations are beginning to recover.
After decades spent trying to restore shark populations, their recovery can apparently become inconvenient once they start behaving like sharks. The same human-centred logic appears in the order’s proposal to convert decommissioned offshore oil and gas structures into artificial reefs. Some structures may provide useful habitat. But Greenpeace USA’s Arlo Hemphill warned that attracting fish towards a structure does not necessarily mean increasing fish populations. Initially, fish from the surrounding area may simply gather there. Which also makes them easier to catch.
The research questioning 30×30 does not show that marine protection is pointless. The target has attracted political attention and funding, and researchers suggested better measures including enforcement, level of protection and whether an area is actually being managed. Improving those things could undoubtedly leave more marine ecosystems intact. But calling somewhere “protected” tells us remarkably little if the fundamental relationship remains unchanged.
A fish can be inside a protected area and still be deliberately caught.
A shark can begin recovering and then become a problem because they interfere with fishing.
An artificial habitat can attract fish and then make those fish easier to kill.
The contradiction is not difficult to find. It is built into a version of conservation that can value healthy populations while continuing to treat the individuals making up those populations as resources.
Protect the ocean.
Protect fish biomass.
Protect biodiversity.
But when an individual fish encounters a hook, apparently all bets are off.
DJT and the regime he represents are stripping away all the protections they possibly in the name of greed. There's obviously so much to this but those paying attention know full well what's happening and we're doing what we can to fight back whilst educating the educable to the facts. The general population think the fishing industry is so benign, but they have little to no idea of the facts. As we know, most people are more interested in protecting their tastebuds that they are in the critical issues facing humanity, our planet, and all those we share it with.