Incorporating Ecosystem Objectives into Fisheries Management

1. Incorporating Ecosystem Objectives into Fisheries Management including: ‘best practice’ reference points and use of Marine Protected Areas Keith Sainsbury CSIRO Australia Ussif Rashid Sumalia UBC Canada CMI Norway

2. Incorporating Ecosystem Related Objectives Into Management for Sustainable Fisheries • What are these “ecosystem related objectives” • The challenge • Some ways forward

3. Some Ecosystem Related Objectives From International Agreements • Manage resources sustainably for human nutritional, economic and social goals (LOSC and UNCED) • Protect rare or fragile ecosystems, habitats and species (UNCED) • Conserve genetic, species and ecosystem biodiversity (CBD) • Preventative, precautionary and anticipatory planning and implementation (UNCED) • Protect and maintain the relationships and dependencies between species (UNCED) UNCED=UN Convention on the Environment and Development (1992) LOSC=UN Law of the Sea Convention (1982) CBD= Convention on Biological Diversity (1992)

4. The Challenge: Bridging the Gap Between “High Level” Objectives and Operational Management Operational questions: • What specific outcomes are intended? • What are the targets, limits and levels of acceptable change? • How will a given management action help or hinder the intent? • How would success or failure be measured and detected? • How can precaution and balance be achieved across objectives that span use and conservation of complex ecosystems?

5. Steps Forward - Bridging the Gap Achieving sustainability is not easy, even for target species let alone ecosystems But we know enough to make a very good start: 1. Report performance and assess management strategies for the system as a whole 2. Use reference points that incorporate uncertainty and ecosystem considerations 3. Make better use of inherently precautionary management measures such as protected areas

6. 1. Performance Reporting and Assessment for the Management System as a Whole • Establish the hierarchy between high level and operational objectives • High level objectives need operational objectives • Operational objectives need indicators and reference points • Indicators and reference points give performance measures

7. Performance Reporting for the Management System as a Whole: a practical application • An approach to reporting Sustainable Development for Australian fisheries - similar approach elsewhere • Identify components for high level objectives • Develop ‘component tree’ linking high level objectives to operational objectives - via as many sub-components needed

8. Example ‘component tree’ linking high level to operational objectives • Risk assessment to identify and weight important branches • Report for each terminal - objectives - performance measures - monitoring - management response • Transparent, simple & flexible reporting framework

9. Assessment of the Management System as a Whole • The ‘component tree’ identifies the important issues and - targets, monitoring, and proposed management response • Taken as a whole - are they likely to achieve the objectives within and across branches? • What management strategies can be expected to achieve the operational objectives? - balance of outcomes - risks and precaution

10. Scientific Evaluation of Feedback Management Strategies Methods for evaluation have been developed: • Adaptive management methods (Walters, Hilborn and others) • Management procedure methods (IWC, Butterworth and others) • Management strategy evaluation

11. Simulation Testing of Operational Management Strategies A Management Strategy contains: • Performance measures • Monitoring • Analysis method • Decision rules • Feedback for “detection and correction” • Implementation

12. Management Strategy Evaluation - Experience Many applications: • Fishery target species management - reference points, monitoring, decision rules • Maintaining food-chain dependencies (eg CCAMLR) • Setting by-catch limits (eg Potential Biological Removals) • Maintaining habitats and fish community composition (eg Australian NW Shelf and GB Reef) Understanding robustness, risk, precaution, trade-offs

13. 2. Use Reference Points that Incorporate Uncertainty and Ecosystem Considerations • Appropriate reference points depend on the management system as a whole • But there is an emerging ‘best practice’ • Incomplete but developing - mainly at species level and accounting for some ecological processes - weak for ecosystem properties (habitats, biodiversity, food-webs, community structure) - no guarantee they are necessary or sufficient for ecological sustainability • A credible starting point - practical and useable now

14. Some Emerging ‘Best Practice’ Reference Points for Ecologically Sustainable Fisheries

15. Some Emerging ‘Best Practice’ Reference Points for Ecologically Sustainable Fisheries

16. 3. Use of Inherently Precautionary Management Measures Such as Marine Protected Areas What is an MPA? • An area managed to protect and maintain biological diversity, and natural and associated cultural resources (IUCN 1994) Categories of MPA range from: • Reserve or sanctuary - minimal impacts and no extractive use • Habitat/species protected area - manage to protect specific values • Resource Protected Area - managed for sustainable resource use What can MPAs achieve in theory? • Reference site for comparison • Preservation and restoration

17. ImmediateShort-termMedium - Long-term Community Structure Habitat damage stopped Biodiversity increases Ecological function enhanced Communities stabilize Habitat complexity increase Higher trophic structure rebuilds Spawning habitat condition improves Fishing mortality eliminated Mean age and size increase Population Structure Individuals live longer ‘Natural’ age/size structuresre-established Biomass & spawning biomass increase Recruitment enhanced Number and densityincrease Reduced lossof genetic information Population Abundance Reproductive output increases Reserve Spillover Larval Export Fishing Grounds Stability Enhancement

18. What Have MPAs Achieved in Practice? • Often demonstrated • Increased abundance, size and density of species • Sometimes demonstrated • Increased fecundity and reproductive capacity • Increased species richness and genetic diversity • Increased fishery yield in surrounding area • Economic benefits to fishery and other uses • But effects poorly known because • Weak baseline data • Reserves small and/or recent • Little performance evaluation for most MPAs

19. How Can We Enhance MPA Success? • Apply design methods that are available - including uncertainty - area, location, shape of MPAs - networks of MPAs • Identify operational objectives and management strategy - evaluate and establish monitoring and performance assessment • Meet critical information needs - what is where, and what interconnections - scale and location of major seafloor habitat types - new technologies can help

20. Incorporating Ecosystem Related Objectives Into Fisheries Management: Conclusions There are existing methods and approaches that can be applied now: 1. Use transparent and ‘whole system’ approach to - link high level and operational objectives - demonstrate basis of prioritisations - structure performance reporting 2. Assess and design management strategies for - robustness and precaution - adequacy of monitoring and planned ‘detection- correction’ response

21. Incorporating Ecosystem Related Objectives Into Management for Sustainable Fisheries: Conclusions 3. Use emerging ‘best practice’ reference points 4. Improve design and use of marine protected areas - precaution and preservation - monitoring and performance assessment - use as reference sites Continuous improvements will be made but we have the basis for a credible and major first step