Aliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
P O Box 1309, Carmel Valley, CA 93924 (831) 659-2838

And please--we hope that no one thinks that a few extra "eco-tourism" jobs that may come from marine reserves will make up for this, but if it is the goal to replace our work with eco-tourism, we'd like to hear that straight-up. If it is the intention of at least some conservation organizations to reduce fishing capacity (i.e., take people off the water), we suggest that those organizations take the straight path to this goal and fund-raise to buy boats and permits. Will the conservation community support adequate compensation for the loss of jobs and income that result from any large-scale implementation of marine reserves?

The conservation community also needs to address the social and environmental implications of displaced fishing effort. This occurs as a negative impact in the likelihood of over-fishing the areas outside the reserves (if the marine reserves take the most productive fishing grounds as has been proposed.) It also occurs on an international basis, as marine reserves decrease local fish production and the demand for fish expresses itself by an increased import market. Herein is the irony which the conservation community must face up to: marine reserves in U.S. waters are very likely to contribute to the over-fishing of the waters of developing nations, where far less (if any) fishery management occurs. It seems to set the stage for a dynamic for which our nation receives frequent criticism: we rip-off the resources of developing nations for our own benefit.

We also point out the ominous parallel with the demise of the small family farm, as fishermen are most fundamentally food producers. Fishing could end up being only corporate fishing by a few outfits with a few large vessels, supplemented by lots of foreign imports and farmfish. Real environmental protection and resource management has historically been done more effectively by small economic units who have immediate stakes in the outcomes. The work of Wendell Berry, who writes so eloquently about the role of the small family farm in America's local culture and economy, offers insight into the dilemma of fishing communities as well. We should not forget a basic law of socio-economics: The true wealth of a nation is created and sustained when its labor utilizes its own natural resources, turning those resources into finished products, for use and consumption by its own people, and for export.

That last social issue that we want to address relates to the legal basis for removing large areas from general usage and limiting public access. There are landside precedents for this, such as land-use/zoning laws, but there are coastal/ocean laws that seem contrary to that. In California the Coastal Act gives deference to the needs of the fishing community. The Doctrine of the Public Trust for State (California) Tidelands guarantees that tidelands will be used for "Commerce, Navigation, and Fisheries." In California, marine reserve status can also mean that all human uses may be excluded, including vessel anchoring, surfing, and non-extractive diving. Most people don't know this and we think that these points and their implications have not been adequately debated.

6. While we continue to have many questions about marine reserves as a primary tool in the fishery
management toolbox, there may be specific areas of fishery management where they are useful. An example of some work that has begun on this question is the paper written by Parrish, Segar and Yoklvich titled Phase I Technical Analysis for Marine Reserves to Supplement Management of West Coast Groundfish Resources. This paper details a process of analysis, species by species, of the appropriateness of a marine reserve as a management tool, and alternatives. This is an attempt at the process of science, not political science, and it shows that there is no "one size fits all" marine reserve.
It takes a very special fish life history for marine reserves to be an effective management tool, meaning a reasonably sedentary adult life history but highly dispersive larval stages - so marine reserves can't be an effective tool for most West Coast commercial fishes because they move too much. MPA's are one form of spatial management that would be really useful for some invertebrates, but the spatial scale that is appropriate for one species won't necessarily be appropriate for another. We need to move to spatial management, but MPA's are too blunt an instrument. We also need more basic information about which species really benefit from marine reserves - and which would not.

A main concern among fishermen is that marine reserves may only create management redundancies. In fact we wonder if marine reserves offer anything that conventional management can't accomplish with more flexibility and adaptability. This is one of our central questions. The focus of marine reserves is on human extraction being the main cause of stock depression, while mortality from non-point sources (sound testing, ultra-violet, pollution, etc) and predation, are not addressed. An advantage of an annual management process is that it allows for new information to be incorporated and adjustments made - adaptive management. Generally our thoughts right now are that marine reserves should be utilized as a management tool only if the desired goal cannot be achieved through gear modifications and/or conventional management measures.

7. We heard loud and clear that social science and economic science need to be done concurrently
with biological science when considering marine reserves. Additionally, they should be given equal weight. Without this, who will value the culture and heritage of our fishing communities? Fishermen are far more at risk of being lost to our communities than there is danger of any West Coast fish becoming extinct. CONTINUED