Large‐scale expansion of no‐take closures within the Great Barrier Reef has not enhanced fishery production

Abstract

A rare opportunity to test hypotheses about potential fishery benefits of large-scale closures was initiated in July 2004 when an additional 28.4% of the 348 000 km2 Great Barrier Reef (GBR) region of Queensland, Australia was closed to all fishing. Advice to the Australian and Queensland governments that supported this initiative predicted these additional closures would generate minimal (10%) initial reductions in both catch and landed value within the GBR area, with recovery of catches becoming apparent after three years. To test these predictions, commercial fisheries data from the GBR area and from the two adjacent (non-GBR) areas of Queensland were compared for the periods immediately before and after the closures were implemented. The observed means for total annual catch and value within the GBR declined from preclosure (2000-2003) levels of 12780 Mg and Australian $160 million, to initial post-closure (2005-2008) levels of 8143 Mg and $102 million; decreases of 35% and 36% respectively. Because the reference areas in the non-GBR had minimal changes in catch and value, the beyond-BACI (before, after, control, impact) analyses estimated initial net reductions within the GBR of 35% for both total catch and value. There was no evidence of recovery in total catch levels or any comparative improvement in catch rates within the GBR nine years after implementation. These results are not consistent with the advice to governments that the closures would have minimal initial impacts and rapidly generate benefits to fisheries in the GBR through increased juvenile recruitment and adult spillovers. Instead, the absence of evidence of recovery in catches to date currently supports an alternative hypothesis that where there is already effective fisheries management, the closing of areas to all fishing will generate reductions in overall catches similar to the percentage of the fished area that is closed.

Crop rotations in the sea: Increasing returns and reducing risk of collapse in sea cucumber fisheries

“…1A). Recently, Fletcher et al (38) report that there has been no recovery in catch levels or catch rates of commercial fisheries since that time, but their analysis does not include collection fisheries, such as sea cucumber.…”

North East Atlantic vs. Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas as Fisheries Management Tool

“…For their part, Mediterranean MPAs (Planes et al, 2006;Fenberg et al, 2012) are usually small (hundreds of hectares or less; Gabrié et al, 2012;Portman et al, 2012), and are in general located in areas that are biologically unique, because of the occurrence of remarkably diverse and/or complex habitats; they always include a core marine reserve, a no-use or no-take area (i.e., where all human activity is banned or any type of fishing is absolutely prohibited), and they are often bounded by a buffer area, where some fishing activity is allowed and strongly regulated by traditional approaches. Although, the difference in total size arises as the immediate option to explain differences between Northern and Southern European MPAs, empirical evidence is less clear on this: while some studies argue for large MPAs to ensure their success, other recommend smaller MPAs Fletcher et al, 2015;Hughes et al, 2016).…”

“…Even, although strongly contested by other authors (Hughes et al, 2016), the usefulness of excessively large reserves has been questioned for improving fishery performance (Fletcher et al, 2015).…”

Estimating the economic benefits and costs of highly‐protected marine protected areas

“…Others have expressed doubts about the ability of MPAs to deliver biological benefits (Smith and Wilen , Fletcher et al. ), particularly when compared to conventional tools used for fishery management (Hilborn et al. ).…”