Closed areas as a conservation strategy in the Newfoundland lobster fishery

Abstract

The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC) reviewed lobster resource conservation in Atlantic Canada and concluded in its 1995 report that under current management regimes the risk of recruitment failure was unacceptably high because of the low level of egg production. It recommended implementation of measures to reduce the overall level of exploitation on the resource. Closed areas were included among several management measures identified to increase egg production. In 1997, at stakeholder initiative, two closed areas were established near Eastport, Bonavista Bay, as part of a co-management agreement between a committee representing local lobster fishers and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Newfoundland Region. These received formal marine protected area (MPA) status and protection under Canada's Oceans Act in fall 2005. Following the closures at Eastport, a series of initiatives by local stakeholders resulted in seven additional closed areas being established elsewhere around Newfoundland by 2004. Details of this extraordinary development in lobster fishery management as a way of addressing resource conservation concerns are provided. The extent to which recruitment benefit from a closed area will accrue to the surrounding local fishing grounds has consistently been an issue prior to their establishment in the foregoing areas as well as in several others where consensus to do so could not be achieved. Therefore, this study includes a consideration of lobster larval dispersal and recruitment processes as a basis for evaluating the distribution of recruitment benefits from local closed areas.