Marine Protected Areas: Examples from the San Juan Islands, Washington.

Marine protected areas and marine reserves increasingly are promoted as tools for the management of marine resources, and strong support for their implementation has emerged among scientists and non-scientists alike. In San Juan County, WA, voluntary marine protected areas for eight species of bottomfish (Sebastes spp., Scorpaenichthys marmoratus, Hexagrammos decagrammus, Ophiodon elongatus) and southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) have been established through citizen action. Although the efficacy of these protective measures has not yet been demonstrated, they may contribute substantially to the conservation of local marine species.

Introduction to marine protected areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are areas set aside for the protection and recovery of living and non-living marine resources, in much the same way that terrestrial reserves are set aside for the protection and recovery of land-based resources. Different from their terrestrial counterparts, however, MPAs have been employed far less frequently to achieve management and conservation goals, and our collective experience in their design, implementation, and management is far weaker. Additionally, many characteristics of marine systems differ substantially from those of terrestrial, systems. For example, long-distance dispersal of larvae is common among some marine species, causing local recruitment to be uncoupled from local reproduction. Furthermore, the dynamics of larval and adult stages can be strongly affected by local and regional oceanographic circulation patterns. For these and other reasons, design criteria developed for terrestrial systems are not fully transferable to marine systems.

As presently defined, MPAs constitute spatially-explicit management areas within which some level of resource protection is conferred through regulatory or voluntary action. Many MPAs are managed for multiple human uses and allow extraction of biological resources. This class of MPAs includes shoreline and underwater parks as well as National Marine Sanctuaries. Other, more restrictive MPAs are fully protected from extractive activities; these are often referred to as "marine reserves" or "fully-protected marine reserves." Contrary to traditional fisheries-management techniques, which typically seek to maximize yield of a target stock or population, MPAs offer place-based protection and management of resources without regard to yield.

MPAs increasingly are proposed as a means of addressing population declines and habitat loss in marine environments in the U.S. and elsewhere. For example, in May 2000, President Clinton signed Executive Order 13158 directing federal agencies to work with state and local interests to establish a comprehensive, representative national system of MPAs that will increase protection for marine resources. In response to this order, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is assembling an advisory committee, establishing an MPA Center, compiling an inventory of candidate MPA sites, and creating a website (www.mpa.gov) for dissemination of information. Independently, in late 2000, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences completed a two-year review of the utility, design, and implementation of MPAs (National Research Council 2000; www.nap.edu). Among their conclusions were that MPAs can be used as effective management tools to conserve habitats, maintain marine communities and their associated ecosystem functions, and promote recovery of overexploited populations. Importantly, the group argued against maintaining conventional strategies as the sole means of managing marine resources. Instead, they suggested that MPAs offer a promising alternative management strategy that can be used in addition to conventional management strategies to achieve conservation goals. Most recently, at the annual meeting of the American Associate for the Advancement of Science, a group of scientists expressed strong support for MPAs as a means of providing more effective management for protection of biodiversity, exploited populations, and marine ecosystem health (www.seaweb.org). The consensus statement produced by this group was signed by 150 scientists in support of the use of MPAs in marine management. Finally, numerous shorter articles on the science and implementation of MPAs have appeared in both peer-reviewed and popular publications over the last decade, indicating widespread interest among professionals in the development of a coherent, scientifically-based theory of MPA design and management [National Research Council 2000 and references therein).

The growing enthusiasm for MPAs has been matched in recent years by efforts to establish MPAs in the U.S. and elsewhere. Internationally, the number of MPAs increased by an order of magnitude between 1970 and 1994 (Kelleher et al. 1995). Within the U.S., California, Washington, Hawaii, and Florida have all designated MPAs within the last decade. Even so, less than one percent of the U.S. shoreline is currently protected within designated MPAs (National Research Council 2000).

Despite their current popularity as management tools, MPAs do not represent a new management strategy. Spatially-explicit closures historically have been used by some tropical island nations to manage local marine resources (e.g., Johannes 1978), and some of the best evidence for the success of MPAs in achieving species protection comes from these and other tropical reef areas (e.g., Alcala and Russ 1990, Roberts 1995). In the U.S., several MPAs were established in the middle of the last century, well before the current rush to designate protected areas; these include Everglades National Park, Fort Jefferson National Monument in the Dry Tortugas, and the Key Largo Coral Reef Preserve (established in 1934, 1935, 1960, respectively).

Protection of threatened and endangered species

Although MPAs most often are used as management tools to protect biodiversity, restore overexploited populations, and reduce uncertainty inherent in conventional management strategies, in a few cases they have been established for the explicit protection of threatened or endangered species. For example, the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was established for the protection of endangered humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). Among the protections conferred by the Sanctuary is protection from harassment by whale-watching boats. The southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris), which is listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, has gained similar protection from harassment by the establishment of a refuge along parts of the central California coast. In Mexico, breeding lagoons used by the eastern North Pacific gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus; recently removed from the U.S. List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife) have been protected from certain types of shoreline development and whale-watching guidelines have been put in place. The establishment of MPAs holds promise for the recovery of other threatened and endangered marine species, especially when there is fidelity to specific sites during all or part of the species' life history.

Voluntary versus regulatory protections

MPAs have been established through both voluntary and regulatory means, and each approach has its merits (e.g., Gubbay and Welton 1995). Although only regulatory MPAs can guarantee full protection of resources, the costs of enforcement are high, and the imposition of regulations can erode public support for protection efforts. Voluntary approaches can build public support and enhance stewardship without the considerable costs of enforcement. In addition, voluntary MPAs often can be established more quickly than regulatory MPAs, because no new legislation needed. However, in order for voluntary MPAs to be even moderately successful, they must have the support of the local population and provide protection from poaching. These are conditions that cannot always be met.

Case study in voluntary protection: The San Juan Archipelago

The San Juan Archipelago comprises hundreds of islands and emergent rocky reefs in northwestern Washington State (Figure 1). The larger islands are inhabited by both year-round and seasonal residents, and the entire area is a popular recreational destination for people from western Washington and elsewhere. Earlier in this century, fishing and farming were mainstays of the economy; a more diversified economy in which tourism represents an important element now exists.

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The San Juan Islands are rich in marine biological resources. Fish (including salmon; Onchorhynchus spp.), marine mammals, and seabirds all are present on a seasonal or year-round basis. However, the marine biological resources of the area are declining (West 1997). The current status of local marine populations is indicated by two recent petitions to list local species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The first, a petition to list eighteen species of fish (excluding salmon), was submitted to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 1999. NMFS reviewed the status of stocks for seven of the 18, but declined to list any as threatened or endangered. Even so, there is general recognition that local fish populations have declined steeply over the last two to three decades. Currently, a petition to list the southern resident killer whale population is being prepared, based on small extant population size and documented declines in population size since 1995 (van Ginneken et al. 2000). The petition will be submitted to NMFS later this year.

Independent of federal regulatory actions, the citizens of San Juan County have initiated efforts to address declines both of bottomfish and southern resident killer whale populations. The following recounts the history of local attempts to increase protection for bottomfish and killer whales by implementation of voluntary reserves.

Between 1988 and 1996, the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands were considered for designation as a National Marine Sanctuary under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The proposed designation was based on the natural beauty of the area, the perceived value of the local biological resources, and the anticipated threats to their persistence posed by increasing urbanization. However, due to intense local opposition to federal action and oversight, sanctuary designation was never achieved. Following the defeat of the sanctuary designation process in 1996, the San Juan County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) established the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee (MRC). This committee is composed of local citizens and is charged with advising the BOCC on issues of concern in the marine environment.

One of the first actions taken by the MRC was to recommend the establishment of voluntary no-take reserves for the recovery of eight species of bottomfish. Populations of these species are depressed locally as a consequence of recreational and other fishing pressures. In 1997, after receiving recommendations from the MRC, the BOCC established eight voluntary no-take reserves for the protection and recovery of these eight species of bottomfish. As conceived by the MRC, the bottomfish recovery zones will act as harvest refugia for the depleted stocks. Protected populations within the reserves will serve as spawning stock for the replenishment of fish stocks outside the reserves. The location of the reserves was decided by a public process in which recreational fishers identified sites that formerly had been, but no longer were, productive fishing areas. The number and sizes of the reserves were based on political feasibility. The reserves are relatively small, ranging from about 12 to 60 hectares, and protect less than one percent of the shoreline within the county (San Juan County Marine Resources Committee, unpublished data).

Concurrent with the establishment of the bottomfish reserves, the MRC initiated public outreach efforts to increase citizen support for the reserves and implemented a bottomfish monitoring program to detect trends in fish abundance over time. The life-history characteristics of the species of interest dictate that a decade or so may be required before the benefits of protection are detectable; therefore, the effectiveness of these protection efforts has not yet been demonstrated. Even so, a reduction in fishing intensity within the voluntary reserves has already been noted, and public awareness of, and support for the program is growing. Similar voluntary reserves now are being proposed in other counties within the region and in neighboring British Columbia.

A second example of citizen-based efforts at voluntary, spatially-explicit protection in San Juan County is provided by the establishment of a `no-boat' zone for the protection of resident killer whales. Recreational and commercial whale-watching boat traffic surrounding killer whales in San Juan County is often intensive; on some days, more than 100 private and commercial boats can be seen following the local pods. Some argue that such high densities of boats may interfere with feeding and communication by the whales, and may add to stresses imposed on the whales by increasing urbanization and declining availability of salmonid prey. Consequently, a local non-profit organization established a program in 1993 to manage and reduce pressures from boat traffic. Among the elements of this program was the establishment of a voluntary `no-boat' zone extending for several miles along the western shore of San Juan Island, varying in width from one-quarter to one-half mile offshore. Boaters are asked to allow the whales to pass through this zone without harassment. The program has gained the support of the International Whale Watch Operators Association Northwest as well as many private boat owners and citizens, and compliance with the voluntary guidelines is increasing (Soundwatch Program, Friday Harbor, WA, unpublished data).

Summary

It is too early to determine whether citizen-based efforts to protect local populations of bottomfish and killer whales will confer long-term benefit to these populations. Certainly, the rate of compliance among users, many of whom are occasional visitors and therefore not highly invested the conservation of local resources, will play a large role in the success or failure of these efforts. Levels of compliance may diminish as fish densities within the MPAs increase relative to populations in unprotected areas. Furthermore, meaningful comparisons between voluntary protection and `hard' regulatory protection will be difficult to draw, because appropriate regulatory reference sites currently are unavailable. Even so, the extension of voluntary protection to these sites is better than no protection at all.

Literature cited

Alcala, A.C. and G.R. Russ. 1990. A direct test of the effects of protective management on abundance and yield of tropical marine resources. J. Cons. Ciem. 47:40-47.

Gubbay, S. and S. Welton. 1995. The voluntary approach to the conservation of marine areas," pp. 199-227 in Marine Protected Areas: Principles and Techniques for Management, ed., Susan Gubbay. Suffolk, Great Britain: Chapman and Hall.

Johannes, R.E. 1978. Traditional Marine Conservation Methods in Oceania and their Demise. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9: 349-364.

Kelleher, G., C. Bleakley, and S. Wells. 1995. A Global Representative System of Marine Protected Areas. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the World Bank, and the Work Conservation Union (IUCN).

National Research Council. 2000. Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Roberts, C.M. Rapid build-up of fish biomass in a Caribbean marine reserve. Conservation Biology 9:815-826.

Van Ginneken, A., D. Ellefrit, and K. Balcomb. 2000. Official Orca Survey Field Guide. Center for Whale Research, Friday Harbor, WA.

West, J.E. 1997. Protection and restoration of marine life in the inland waters of Washington State. Puget Sound/Georgia Basin Environmental Report Series 6. Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team, Olympia, WA.