Fish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Some 4,000 fish species live in or around coral reefs, which are a very complex and productive ecosystem. Scientists now realize they must take into account the many interactions in such ecosystems. (AFP PHOTO/HO/JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY/FILE/NEWSCOM)
A holistic approach to saving the sea
Scientists recognize that species cannot be managed in isolation; management must be based ecosystem-wide – including earth and sky.
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff| Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ June 27, 2008 edition
New York
Eager to correct for errors that might arise when viewing pieces of a greater whole in isolation, scientists in recent years have been calling for a more holistic approach to resource management. They’ve dubbed this approach “ecosystem-based management” (EBM).
In the oceans, EBM means managing for the health of the entire ecosystem – from small shrimplike copepods to large bluefin tuna – rather than just a single stock. It means that, when setting fishing quotas for a forage fish like herring, the needs of other predators, like cod, should be taken into account. And it means considering fishing’s effect (notably bottom trawling) on fish habitat.
In the larger context, EBM means considering factors like coastal development and pollution that affect the marine environment. It implies working across a wide geographical area as well as a range of agencies. Indeed, some say EBM is as much about reforming human institutions to work harmoniously and productively with one another as anything else.
EBM seeks to make goals and trade-offs explicit. In seeking to restore Washington State’s Puget Sound by 2020 along EBM principles, for example, scientists are gathering stakeholders to discuss their often-competing interests. Salmon there have dangerously high PCB levels, which concerns fishermen. (Orcas that wash up dead have to be carted to toxic waste dumps due to high toxin levels.) Runoff from PCB-laden soil around the sound must be limited. Housing developments increase runoff by limiting what the earth can absorb, but people also need affordable housing.
“You get people talking to each other that have never spoken to each other before – orca recovery people talking with home builders,” says Mary Ruckelshaus, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research biologist in Seattle working on the project. And novel solutions – limiting housing density, planning for green spaces – inevitably arise.
Since 1996, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act has called for an ecosystem-wide approach to managing US fisheries. In 2005, the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) released a consensus document signed by 219 scientists outlining what EBM should look like. Among its key points: protecting ecosystem structure; acknowledging the interconnectedness of air, land, and sea; and integrating social, economic, and institutional perspectives. Stakeholder participation is also central to success.
The emphasis on holistic thinking goes back at least as far as Aldo Leopold, an early 20th-century American ecologist and author of the conservationist classic “A Sand County Almanac” (1949).
But its acceptance by mainstream scientists and policymakers reflects several factors: a growing recognition of the importance of healthy robust ecosystems to human health, a feeling that simpler approaches are – and have been – inadequate to the challenges of an ever more complicated and crowded world, and the sense that humankind has reached the end of a long period of accelerating resource consumption.
“We’re not in an empty world anymore,” says Robert Costanza, director of the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. “We’re in a full-world situation. And in a full-world situation, you can’t ignore … connections.”
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Comments
2. Don Heichel | 06.27.08
Alabama and their abundance of fish.
Stephen Szedlmayer, Auburn U.
http://www.ag.auburn.edu/aaes/communications/highlights/summer00/reef.html
The floor of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Alabama is primarily flat and sandy with no natural reefs or structures to break the terrain (just like Monterey Bay from Capitola to Sand City). However, in the aquatic environment, almost any material that adds topographical relief will attract fish and increase catch rates. This concept has been applied extensively in coastal Alabama with the placement of more than 14,000 artificial reefs. AAES research is helping define the uses and implications of these reefs and how and why they affect fish populations…all (studies) suggest that the artificial reef system off Alabama has an important production component (as opposed to being just a fish attracting device).
http://www.reason.com/news/show/34781.html
Alabama, which has only 5 percent of the Gulf’s coastline, produces nearly 40 percent of the red snapper that is caught recreationally in the Gulf.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_5_33/ai_78575543
The Orange Beach Chamber of Commerce estimates that its game-fishing charter fleet of more than 100 boats pumps around $90 million a year into the local economy. (Fishing charters here are just hanging on, praying Salmon return soon).
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/stories/940318.html
according to Jack Spey, Reef Coordinator for Florida’s Okaloosa County, “Man doesn’t create artificial reefs — Mother Nature does. Man can only place vertical structures offshore, which are needed in the Gulf of Mexico so that Mother Nature can take over, and organisms can attach and prosper.
“By placing artificial reefs, man is increasing the capacity of nature to create habitat. Nature is then able to procreate at an increased rate,” said Spey.
3. Proloy Bagchi | 06.28.08
I hope we have now realised that we no longer can behave like that bacteria which when let loose on an oil slick eats up all the oil and then dies of starvation. Unless we fully realise that soon enough, the same fate as that of the bacteria awaits us
4. Luise Perenne | 06.28.08
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see until it’s way too late.
5. Virginia H. Cross | 06.28.08
Yes, I will leave a comment, but I still do not know why you don’t publish mine. Unless it is because I am writing my own book on “My Underwater Encounters”. Is this the reason you won’t publish my comments? You have my permission if that’s required. vhc. Maybe it will get other fisherman to think.
Here is one idea I use when catching Crab out West in Pacific Ocean waters. I realize most the crab is not eaten, only the large pinchers where the meat is. To save the Crab,and let them live, I take only one large pincher for food and let the crab back into the Ocean. They do develop another big pincher and still are able to grow and multiply without killing them. I’ve seen the Crab get into fights underwater and do that among them selves and that is why I caught on to get my crab meat and let them go. One does not need to be greedy. That’s one way I preserve the population on the Crab. That’s one way to eat and be-able to let the Crab survive, multiply and continue for future generations. Talk is one thing, to do something is another. This is one way that I can contribute to the Crab industry and to our future generations. I catch my limit of Crab, take one big pincher, and let them go back to the Ocean. They eat the algae in the Ocean waters just like the fish do. comprising all seaweeds, as rockweed, sea lettuce,kelp etc. I even make Kelp Relish from the long kelp beds in our seas which is very rich and delicious. My family lived off the Oceans all our lives and we are healthy. Sincerely, Virginia H. Cross Professional Deep Sea Diver.
6. Russ George | 06.29.08
I am a bit amazed that you’ve overlooked the greatest peril facing the planet today, the overload of CO2 already spewed into our atmosphere over the course of our 150 year love affair with fossil fuel and with each other. Our population has risen from a few hundred million to over 6 billion in that time and each of us is using more and more energy every day. While it is clear the CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is slowly causing the climate to change, the greater, very rapid and immediately perilous, impact of CO2 is in the acidification of the oceans and devastation of ocean phyto-plankton, the ocean forest. The loss of ocean plant life has been proceeding apace with an effect far greater than eradication of our rainforests. By most estimates we’ve lost 2/3’s of our rainforests an area equal to 3% of the planet, but remember the land is only about 30% of the planet. By comparison our ocean forests, all but invisible to man and not comprehensively studied until very recently, are in far worse shape. Since we launched the first Earth observing satellites in the 1970’s we have seen the loss 17% of ocean plant life in the North Atlantic, 26% in the North Pacific, and horrifyingly 50% in the sub-tropical tropical oceans. But again remember the oceans cover 70+% of the planet. Only drastic ecorestoration of the oceans can possibly save them and us. It’s not about the beauty queens, the corals, of the oceans, it is about the plants of the ocean that feed the entire ocean ecology. visit http://www.planktos-science.com for more information
7. dasein | 07.02.08
Talk about the old becoming new again. EBM has been discussed for decades. As has climate change- a great 1980s vintage science special was aired on PBS last night, exploring the changing climate. How is it that our responses or so leaden, that the public fails to demand adjustments in the planning, management and regulatory frameworks to step away from compartmentalized, partitioned management and move towards a system more reflective of the principle matter being managed? More chat about EBM for the sea, ICZM for the land sea interface is all well and good, but lets get down to it. How many decades lapsed between indications that cigarettes had health affects and true acceptance of that fact? The stakes are exponentially higher ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. S. Sandlin | 06.27.08
“…full-world situation” is putting it lightly, isn’t it. When we’ve destroyed all other creatures by our insatiable appetites, maybe the recognition that procreation is not the gratifying end-all of our purpose on this earth but, rather, the literal and defining reason for our self-destruction. If wanting children, adoption, instead of child bearing, is perhaps the absolute and true way to being “green”. Unlike the rest of creation, humans are “users” and it’s time to realize we’ve left precious little of sustenance for future generations. Life is, indeed, “like a box of chocolates” and we’ve just about finished it off.