Emerging themes to support ambitious UK marine biodiversity conservation

Rees, Siân E.; Sheehan, Emma V.; Stewart, Bryce D.; Clark, Robert W.; Appleby, Thomas; Attrill, Martin J.; Jones, Peter J.S.; Johnson, David E.; Bradshaw, Natasha; Pittman, Simon J.; Oates, Jenny; Solandt, Jean‐Luc

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2020.103864

Cited by 41 publications

(44 citation statements)

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“…23,24]. Deciding what to monitor and evaluate, how, and how often, is not straightforward, and the choice of approach can have implications for costs, efficacy, replicability, and robustness to challenge [25,26]. Furthermore, the effectiveness of spatial management measures is affected by decisions made before establishment (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The nature and extent of evidence on methodologies for monitoring and evaluating marine spatial management measures in the UK and similar coastal waters: a systematic map

et al. 2021

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Background Anthropogenic degradation of marine ecosystems is widely accepted as a major social-ecological problem. The growing urgency to manage marine ecosystems more effectively has led to increasing application of spatial management measures (marine protected areas [MPAs], sectoral [e.g. fishery] closures and marine spatial planning [marine plans]). Understanding the methodologies used to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures against social, economic, and ecological outcomes is key for designing effective monitoring and evaluation programmes. Methods We used a pre-defined and tested search string focusing on intervention and outcome terms to search for relevant studies across four bibliographic databases, Google Scholar, 39 organisational websites, and one specialist data repository. Searches were conducted in English and restricted to the period 2009 to 2019 to align with current UK marine policy contexts. Relevant studies were restricted to UK-relevant coastal countries, as identified by key stakeholders. Search results were screened for relevance against pre-defined eligibility criteria first at title and abstract level, and then at full text. Articles assessed as not relevant at full text were recorded with reasons for exclusion. Two systematic map databases of meta-data and coded data from relevant primary and secondary studies, respectively, were produced. Review findings Over 19,500 search results were identified, resulting in 391 relevant primary articles, 33 secondary articles and 49 tertiary reviews. Relevant primary articles evaluated spatial management measures across a total of 22 social, economic and ecological outcomes; only 2.8% considered all three disciplines, with most focused exclusively on ecological (67.8%) or social (13.3%) evaluations. Secondary articles predominately focused on ecological evaluations (75.8%). The majority of the primary and secondary evidence base aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of MPAs (85.7% and 90.9% respectively), followed by fisheries closures (12.5%; 3.0%) with only 1.8% of primary, and 6.1% of secondary, articles focused on marine plans or on MPAs and fisheries closures combined. Most evaluations reported within primary articles were conducted for a single site (60.4%) or multiple individual sites (32.5%), with few evaluating networks of sites (6.9%). Secondary articles mostly evaluated multiple individual sites (93.9%). Most (70.3%) primary articles conducted principal evaluations, i.e. basic description of effects; 29.4% explored causation; and 0.3% undertook benefit evaluations. Secondary articles predominately explored causation (66.7%) with the remainder conducting principal evaluations. Australia (27.4%), the USA (18.4%) and the UK (11.3%) were most frequently studied by primary articles, with secondary articles reporting mostly global (66.7%) or European (18.2%) syntheses. Conclusions The systematic map reveals substantial bodies of evidence relating to methods of evaluating MPAs against ecological outcomes. However, key knowledge gaps include evaluation across social and economic outcomes and of overall merit and/or worth (benefit evaluation), as well as of: marine plans; networks of sites; real-time, temporary or seasonal closures; spatial management within offshore waters, and lagoon or estuary environments. Although the evidence base has grown over the past two decades, information to develop comprehensive evaluation frameworks remains insufficient. Greater understanding on how to evaluate the effectiveness of spatial management measures is required to support improved management of global ocean resources and spaces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The nature and extent of evidence on methodologies for monitoring and evaluating marine spatial management measures in the UK and similar coastal waters: a systematic map

et al. 2021

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“…Globally, area-based biodiversity conservation efforts can tend to drift away from the larger ecological goal of sustainability (Halpern et al, 2010). There have been repeated calls to reintegrate area-based biodiversity conservation and protection into fisheries management, so that area-based protection is considered a cornerstone of a sustainable ecosystem-based management approach and marine spatial planning (Foley et al, 2010;Halpern et al, 2010;Rees et al, 2020). The link between conservation and sustainability was recently promoted on a global scale by Diz et al (2018) who argued that OECMs can help to operationalize the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-14) which aims to "conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Gauging the Impact of Area-Based Fishery Closures and OECMs: A Case Study Using Long-Standing Canadian Groundfish Closures

2021

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The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity was established in 1993. Canada is a signatory nation that has adopted, and exceeded, the UN Aichi biodiversity target to protect 10% of coastal and marine areas through marine protected areas or “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) by 2020. However, the science of OECMs as contributors to biodiversity conservation is relatively young and their definition and efficacy testing continue to evolve. Here, we examine whether areas closed to fishing on the Scotian Shelf in Atlantic Canada, where the groundfish community had collapsed in the early 1990s, have the potential to serve as OECMs for groundfish recovery. Using long-term research survey data, we show that three long-term area-based fishing fleet closures did not enhance per capita population growth rates of the majority of 24 common groundfish species. At a regional scale, 10 out of 24 species are currently at less than 50% of their pre-collapse (1979–1992) biomass, reflecting a sustained diminished productivity, even though fishing mortality has been drastically reduced through a moratorium in 1993. Additional measures are needed to protect severely depleted groundfish, especially when the causes of continued diminished productivity are still largely unresolved. The importance of OECMs as a risk-averse approach toward sustainability is globally accepted and they can be considered a tool toward the overarching UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-14). Our study provides further impetus toward articulating the criteria of OECMs and improving their design, monitoring, and testing, while placing OECMs within the broader context of sustainable ecosystem-based management.

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“…The natural variability of benthic communities inside and outside of MPAs must be monitored to evaluate whether an MPA is successful in attaining the original conservation goals, identify where management or stakeholder efforts might benefit from refinement, and inform management decisions (Rees et al, 2020). Within Europe, current management strategies look to achieve Good Environmental Status, as required by the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (European Commission, 2008), but approaches to management rely on comparisons of the state of the environment at regular intervals with a baseline generated on an ad-hoc basis when evidence is required for designation of a particular MPA.…”

Section: Monitoring Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Human disturbance in MPAs is often limited to discrete areas where defined habitat features, such as reef or seagrass have been mapped, leaving the majority of each MPA still vulnerable to disturbance. The alternative to this feature-based approach is to exclude destructive activities from the Whole Site (Rees et al, 2020;Solandt et al, 2020). This approach allows reef-associated species to colonise interreef sediments thereby rewilding the whole MPA, enhancing the functional reef and potentially stabilising sediments (Sheehan et al, 2013a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rewilding of Protected Areas Enhances Resilience of Marine Ecosystems to Extreme Climatic Events

et al. 2021

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Marine protected areas (MPAs) are employed as tools to manage human impacts, especially fishing pressure. By excluding the most destructive activities MPAs can rewild degraded areas of seabed habitat. The potential for MPAs to increase ecosystem resilience from storms is, however, not understood, nor how such events impact seabed habitats. Extreme storm disturbance impact was studied in Lyme Bay MPA, Southwest United Kingdom, where the 2008 exclusion of bottom-towed fishing from the whole site allowed recovery of degraded temperate reef assemblages to a more complex community. Severe storm impacts in 2013–2014 resulted in major damage to the seabed so that assemblages in the MPA were more similar to sites where fishing continued than at any point since the designation of the MPA; the communities were not dominated by species resistant to physical disturbance. Nevertheless, annual surveys since 2014 have demonstrated that the initial recovery of MPA assemblages was much quicker than that seen following the cessation of chronic towed fishing impact in 2008. Likewise, General Additive Mixed Effect Models (GAMMs) showed that inside the MPA increases in diversity metrics post-Storm were greater and more consistent over time than post-Bottom-Towed Fishing. As extreme events are likely to become more common with climate change, wave exposure observations indicated that 29% of coastal reef MPAs around the United Kingdom may be exposed to comparable wave climate extremes, and may be similarly impacted. This paper therefore provides an insight into the likely extent and magnitude of ecological responses of seabed ecosystems to future extreme disturbance events.

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Emerging themes to support ambitious UK marine biodiversity conservation

Cited by 41 publications

References 72 publications

The nature and extent of evidence on methodologies for monitoring and evaluating marine spatial management measures in the UK and similar coastal waters: a systematic map

The nature and extent of evidence on methodologies for monitoring and evaluating marine spatial management measures in the UK and similar coastal waters: a systematic map

Challenges of Gauging the Impact of Area-Based Fishery Closures and OECMs: A Case Study Using Long-Standing Canadian Groundfish Closures

Rewilding of Protected Areas Enhances Resilience of Marine Ecosystems to Extreme Climatic Events

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