Fish or famine

Researchers and environmentalists say marine protected areas hold a number of potential benefits. They provide vital havens that can support aquatic plants and animals.

Once such areas have been established, researchers say they would expect to see the fish roam beyond the boundaries of the MPAs, rebuilding fisheries farther afield. Combined with conventional fisheries management, MPAs could be an important tool for sustainable harvesting of fish, they say.

Yet the notion of locking up greater portions of US coastal areas - at least for the sake of fisheries - is meeting with mixed reviews from the commercial fishing industry.

"Widening the network of no-take reserves is a greater threat to the productivity of fisheries than overfishing," says Richard Allen, a lobster fisherman from Wakefield, R.I., and fellow in the Pew Charitable Trust's program in marine conservation. He notes that while an MPA may protect fish and expand their populations within its boundaries, the pressure is likely to grow on the fisheries outside the boundaries.

Even proponents of MPAs acknowledge that the jury is still out on the impact reserves can have on improving stocks outside their boundaries.

"It doesn't make sense to preserve an area and trash the rest," Mr. Allen says. He holds that traditional approaches, such as limiting catches, limiting gear, and reducing the size of fishing fleets through quotas, are sufficiently effective to manage fisheries.

Yet in the face of growing pressure from scientists, environmentalists, and the federal government, opposition to additional MPAs faces an uphill battle.

NOAA's Haskell notes that when his agency and the National Park Service released their final management plan for the Keys a few years ago, it included the stated intention to design the new Tortugas reserve. That provision "was notice to everybody that the train was leaving the station, and you can either get on it or stand in front of it," he says.

Such attitudes rile some conservatives in Congress who come from states with large tracts of land whose use the federal government restricts. During the spring and summer, some House members deleted $3 million from the president's budget aimed at implementing the executive order on MPAs. Then, when a conference committee restored the money, opponents inserted language into the budget provision that restricted NOAA to cataloging existing MPAs.

Even as Congress wrestles with the issue, many in Washington are looking to California as the next major test of the science and politics behind MPAs. Under its Marine Life Protection Act, the state is grappling with plans to establish a string of reserves along the length of its coastline. In addition, federal and state officials are laying plans to set up marine-protected areas around the Channel Islands, off Santa Barbara.

At the root of the efforts lies what NOAA's Dr. Bohnsack calls the precautionary principle.

"We do not know where the trouble lights are on marine ecosystems," he says. And in the effort to find out, the quest for the right solution comes down to conflicting ethics

"Most governments and universities operate under the utilitarian conservation ethic. It says that essentially the resources are to be used by humans, and our biggest sin is to be inefficient and wasteful. It's run by economics. The problem is that when you push up to the economic limits, you're close to biological failure. It becomes people versus critters. People tend to win those particular arguments," Bohnsack says.

For his money, he holds that to be effective, management approaches should be driven by the view that "we're part of the environment, we're part of the marine ecosystem. Our job is to maintain the integrity, beauty, and stability of the system" if humans hope to continue earning a living, playing, and eating by the sea.

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