Dataset Information

Size, age, and habitat determine effectiveness of Palau's Marine Protected Areas.

ABSTRACT: Palau has a rich heritage of conservation that has evolved from the traditional moratoria on fishing, or "bul", to more western Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), while still retaining elements of customary management and tenure. In 2003, the Palau Protected Areas Network (PAN) was created to conserve Palau's unique biodiversity and culture, and is the country's mechanism for achieving the goals of the Micronesia Challenge (MC), an initiative to conserve ?30% of near-shore marine resources within the region by 2020. The PAN comprises a network of numerous MPAs within Palau that vary in age, size, level of management, and habitat, which provide an excellent opportunity to test hypotheses concerning MPA design and function using multiple discreet sampling units. Our sampling design provided a robust space for time comparison to evaluate the relative influence of potential drivers of MPA efficacy. Our results showed that no-take MPAs had, on average, nearly twice the biomass of resource fishes (i.e. those important commercially, culturally, or for subsistence) compared to nearby unprotected areas. Biomass of non-resource fishes showed no differences between no-take areas and areas open to fishing. The most striking difference between no-take MPAs and unprotected areas was the more than 5-fold greater biomass of piscivorous fishes in the MPAs compared to fished areas. The most important determinates of no-take MPA success in conserving resource fish biomass were MPA size and years of protection. Habitat and distance from shore had little effect on resource fish biomass. The extensive network of MPAs in Palau likely provides important conservation and tourism benefits to the Republic, and may also provide fisheries benefits by protecting spawning aggregation sites, and potentially through adult spillover.

SUBMITTER: Friedlander AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5373616 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Size, age, and habitat determine effectiveness of Palau's Marine Protected Areas.

Friedlander Alan M AM Golbuu Yimnang Y Ballesteros Enric E Caselle Jennifer E JE Gouezo Marine M Olsudong Dawnette D Sala Enric E

PloS one 20170330 3

Palau has a rich heritage of conservation that has evolved from the traditional moratoria on fishing, or "bul", to more western Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), while still retaining elements of customary management and tenure. In 2003, the Palau Protected Areas Network (PAN) was created to conserve Palau's unique biodiversity and culture, and is the country's mechanism for achieving the goals of the Micronesia Challenge (MC), an initiative to conserve ≥30% of near-shore marine resources within th ...[more]

PMID: 28358910

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Project description:Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a primary tool for the stewardship, conservation, and restoration of marine ecosystems, yet 69% of global MPAs are only partially protected (i.e., are open to some form of fishing). Although fully protected areas have well-documented outcomes, including increased fish diversity and biomass, the effectiveness of partially protected areas is contested. Partially protected areas may provide benefits in some contexts and may be warranted for social reasons, yet social outcomes often depend on MPAs achieving their ecological goals to distinguish them from open areas and justify the cost of protection. We assessed the social perceptions and ecological effectiveness of 18 partially protected areas and 19 fully protected areas compared with 19 open areas along 7000 km of coast of southern Australia. We used mixed methods, gathering data via semistructured interviews, site surveys, and Reef Life (underwater visual census) surveys. We analyzed qualitative data in accordance with grounded theory and quantitative data with multivariate and univariate linear mixed-effects models. We found no social or ecological benefits for partially protected areas relative to open areas in our study. Partially protected areas had no more fish, invertebrates, or algae than open areas; were poorly understood by coastal users; were not more attractive than open areas; and were not perceived to have better marine life than open areas. These findings provide an important counterpoint to some large-scale meta-analyses that conclude partially protected areas can be ecologically effective but that draw this conclusion based on narrower measures. We argue that partially protected areas act as red herrings in marine conservation because they create an illusion of protection and consume scarce conservation resources yet provide little or no social or ecological gain over open areas. Fully protected areas, by contrast, have more fish species and biomass and are well understood, supported, and valued by the public. They are perceived to have better marine life and be improving over time in keeping with actual ecological results. Conservation outcomes can be improved by upgrading partially protected areas to higher levels of protection including conversion to fully protected areas.

Project description:Government-managed marine protected areas (MPAs) can restore small fish stocks, but have been heavily criticized for excluding resource users and creating conflicts. A promising but less studied alternative are community-managed MPAs, where resource users are more involved in MPA design, implementation and enforcement. Here we evaluated effects of government- and community-managed MPAs on the density, size and biomass of seagrass- and coral reef-associated fish, using field surveys in Kenyan coastal lagoons. We also assessed protection effects on the potential monetary value of fish; a variable that increases non-linearly with fish body mass and is particularly important from a fishery perspective. We found that two recently established community MPAs (< 1 km2 in size, ? 5 years of protection) harbored larger fish and greater total fish biomass than two fished (open access) areas, in both seagrass beds and coral reefs. As expected, protection effects were considerably stronger in the older and larger government MPAs. Importantly, across management and habitat types, the protection effect on the potential monetary value of the fish was much stronger than the effects on fish biomass and size (6.7 vs. 2.6 and 1.3 times higher value in community MPAs than in fished areas, respectively). This strong effect on potential value was partly explained by presence of larger (and therefore more valuable) individual fish, and partly by higher densities of high-value taxa (e.g. rabbitfish). In summary, we show that i) small and recently established community-managed MPAs can, just like larger and older government-managed MPAs, play an important role for local conservation of high-value fish, and that ii) these effects are equally strong in coral reefs as in seagrass beds; an important habitat too rarely included in formal management. Consequently, community-managed MPAs could benefit both coral reef and seagrass ecosystems and provide spillover of valuable fish to nearby fisheries.

Dataset Information

Size, age, and habitat determine effectiveness of Palau's Marine Protected Areas.

Publications

Size, age, and habitat determine effectiveness of Palau's Marine Protected Areas.

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