Abstract
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been widely proposed as a fisheries management tool in addition to their conservation purposes. Despite this, few studies have satisfactorily assessed the dynamics of fishers’ adaptations to the loss of fishing grounds. Here we used data from before, during and after the implementation of the management plan of a temperate Atlantic multiple-use MPA to examine the factors affecting the spatial and temporal distribution of different gears used by the artisanal fishing fleet. The position of vessels and gear types were obtained by visual surveys and related to spatial features of the marine park. A hotspot analysis was conducted to identify heavily utilized patches for each fishing gear and time period. The contribution of individual vessels to each significant cluster was assessed to better understand fishers’ choices. Different fisheries responded differently to the implementation of protection measures, with preferred habitats of target species driving much of the fishers’ choices. Within each fishery, individual fishers showed distinct strategies with some operating in a broader area whereas others kept preferred territories. Our findings are based on reliable methods that can easily be applied in coastal multipurpose MPAs to monitor and assess fisheries and fishers responses to different management rules and protection levels. This paper is the first in-depth empirical study where fishers’ choices from artisanal fisheries were analysed before, during and after the implementation of a MPA, thereby allowing a clearer understanding of the dynamics of local fisheries and providing significant lessons for marine conservation and management of coastal systems.
Highlights
IntroductionMarine protected areas (MPAs) have been suggested as important fisheries management tools [1,2,3]
Besides conservation purposes, marine protected areas (MPAs) have been suggested as important fisheries management tools [1,2,3]
Several reviews have focussed on the evaluation of the reserve effect [2,9,13], but fewer studies have empirically considered the patchy distribution of species and fishing effort [8,14,15,16], which might have a large influence on the assessment of fisheries benefits of a MPA
Summary
Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been suggested as important fisheries management tools [1,2,3]. Some authors have suggested that fisheries are more likely to benefit through larval export from reserves to surrounding areas due to an increase in size and fecundity of adults inside the reserve [4,6], but these benefits have been much more difficult to detect [7,8] Further to these direct responses, indirect effects may occur and affect nearby areas after some time due to the build-up of top-predators and subsequent trophic cascades inside no-take areas [9,10]. It is important to include and understand fishers’ behaviour in relation to enforced management rules, habitat preferences of commercial species and other fishers or competing activities
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