Spatial marine zoning for fisheries and conservation

Abstract

Protected areas are an effective tool for reducing biodiversity loss. Current legislation distinguishes various types of marine protected areas, each allowing different levels of resource extraction. However, almost all of the theory for spatial conservation planning is focused on identifying no‐take reserves. The current approaches to zoning for multiple types of protected areas could result in suboptimal plans in terms of protecting biodiversity and minimizing negative socioeconomic impacts. We overcame these limitations in the first application of the multizone planning tool, Marxan with Zones, to design a network of four types of protected areas in the context of California's Marine Life Protection Act. We have produced a zoning configuration that entails mean value losses of less than 9% for every fishery, without compromising conservation goals. We also found that a spatial numerical optimization tool that allows for multiple zones outperforms a tool that can identify one zone (ie marine reserves) in two ways: first, the overall impact on the fishing industry is reduced, and second, a more equitable impact on different fishing sectors is achieved. Finally, we examined the tradeoffs between representing biodiversity features and impacting fisheries. Our approach is applicable to both marine and terrestrial conservation planning, and delivers an ecosystem‐based management outcome that balances conservation and industry objectives.

Achieving the triple bottom line in the face of inherent trade-offs among social equity, economic return, and conservation

“…23, 24). More recently, attention has also focused on optimizing social equity through instances where all stakeholders are included in the planning process (18) or are affected equally by actions (12,25,26), and to a lesser extent through consideration of intergenerational equity (27,28). It is typically assumed that increased equity comes at the cost of financially optimal conservation solutions, but the nature and shape of that trade-off is generally unknown (29).…”

Embedding ecosystem services in coastal planning leads to better outcomes for people and nature

“…Such success stories require methods for assessing variation in a suite of services and forecasting change under future scenarios. Until recently, these methods were lacking for ocean environments (17,(24)(25)(26)(27). Now, research on numerous benefits provided by coastal and marine ecosystems is accumulating (28).…”

Research advances and gaps in marine planning: towards a global database in systematic conservation planning

“…Increasingly, attention is being given to socioeconomic considerations (Ban and Klein, 2009), land-sea planning (Álvarez-Romero et al, 2011) and, more recently, to ecological connectivity and climate change (Magris et al, 2014). Other topics gaining traction but proceeding more slowly included marine zoning (e.g., Klein et al, 2009), planning for pelagic ecosystems (e.g., Game et al, 2009), and dynamic oceanographic processes (e.g., Grantham et al, 2011). Advances in these aspects of planning have resulted in new methods and tools that can help planners to design more robust MPA systems that can be effective in achieving conservation goals under current and future cumulative threats (e.g., land-based pollution, global warming).…”

“…For example, White et al (2014) leveraged biological data and models generated through the MLPA to refine considerations of ecological connectivity in marine planning. Other California studies in the database focused on how to more meaningfully integrate socioeconomic considerations into planning (e.g., Halpern et al, 2013;Klein et al, 2009). …”