Transcript major habitats - Marine Reserves

Marine Reserves
The New Zealand Experience
Compiled by Bill Ballantine
Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland
The world centred on NZ
The South West Pacific
The New Zealand Region
Usual Map
Land Habitats
Marine Habitats !
Little Barrier Island – 1st land reserve 1888
Leigh – 1st marine reserve 1975
The rules in Marine Reserve
1. No fishing - by big boats
or little boats
No fishing by anyone
2. No constructions
3. No dumping or filling
4. No disturbances
• Marine reserves are pieces of the sea that
are left undisturbed so that • They continue in their natural state
• Or recover towards the natural state
The problem is we do not know much about life in
the sea – it is out of sight
Most countries try 1. To protect the large special things
2. To sustain fisheries
3. And some oddments
• But these things are only a tiny
part of life in the sea
Marine life is abundant, varied, complex and
different from life on land
It is even difficult to tell the plants from the
animals
If we have places in the sea where
there are no disturbances
– would these marine reserves
have any use?
We could them to find out what is natural,
and what we have changed.
Counting fish – a place to start
But even well-meant disturbances matter –
like people feeding fish
So in the reserve fish mob the divers
while outside they flee
Do we believe the fish counts that show
more fish in the reserve than outside?
Check by fishing ! (with barbless hooks)
Results of 4 surveys
for snapper
Inside the reserve
• Outside reserve
The tagging system – inject coloured latex
Into a fin ray – this one yellow in a tail fin ray
Third method of counting fish.
Video camera over a bait box
No divers, no hooks, just sit in the boat
and watch on video
Cheaper
Easier
No harm to fish
So taken to many other
places including the
Poor Knights Islands
Some fishing at Poor Knights till November 1998
No increase at places still fished
Movement matters
Fish can be tracked
with acoustic tags
And their position fixed with sound receivers
One snapper’s range in a week
• With the first two marine reserves we learnt
important new things about snapper –
although snapper were the best studied fish
Also new things about rock lobster
Complex movements
New behaviour
Changes with time
lobsters 500 m-2
(+/- SE)
reserve
50
Leigh
non reserve
40
30
20
10
0
1970
1980
1990
2000
year
- Rapid increase when reserve established
- Decline across all sites between 1995 and 2001
- Densities remain ~10 times higher in reserve
Data: Ayling 1978, McDiarmid & Breen 1992, Kelly and Haggitt 1996, 2000, 2002
Heavily fished species increase inside
marine reserves but this is only the start of the
story -
The big changes are to habitats
In 1976 the commonest sub-tidal reef habitat was
grazed by sea-urchins
But with protection predators not only become
commoner, they also grow larger
Large lobsters can open large sea urchins
Inside the reserve, 30% of tethered sea urchins
are eaten within 24 hours – outside almost none.
Urchin “barrens” like this in 1976
Are now kelp forest
• Marine Reserves give everyone more
opportunity to see and appreciate the full
range of marine life.
In displays on land
In visits to the shore
Or directly in the sea
Whole classes of children go snorkelling
And can see bottom living fish – such as skates
Fish in the water column, such as sweep
Fish in the kelp forest, such as snapper
A natural abundance of fish
A glass-bottomed boat will do
Or just watch it on film
Is this education, recreation or tourism?
What is the target audience or market?
Is it just people?
• Compressing a 30 year story into 30 minutes
means a lot of simplification.
• Most of the things that happened in the reserve
were complete surprises.
• We are still learning.
• Recently we learnt more about fish feeding
Many people, especially children enjoyed feeding
the fish
This produced feeding frenzies
Angela Parsons, a young part-time ranger said
this was wrong in a marine reserve
She wrote and put up this sign –
and the feeding stopped
An illustration from a pamphlet about fish and
other animals in the reserve
A female ‘spotty’ , a small common labrid fish
A male ‘spotty’ All are female first, but change sex
at 3 years
The only stakeholders I recognize are our
grandchildren – the rest of us are users.
What are we going to leave them?
End of Part 1
Thanks to all the research workers and photographers who
supplied material for this presentation – especially
Kim Westerskov
Tony Ayling
Roger Grace
Allie MacDiarmid
Shane Kelly
Russ Babcock
Nick Shears
Tim Haggitt
John Walsby
Geoff Jones
Howard Choat
Chris Battershill
Mike Kingsford
Trevor Willis
Darren Parsons
Tim Langlois
Part 2
Principles for SYSTEMS of marine
reserves
Bill Ballantine, Leigh Marine Laboratory
New Zealand
Written for a workshop at the UBC
Fisheries Center, Vancouver in 1997
I was specially invited, so I tried to
upgrade:-
(a) from single reserves to systems
(b) from particular aims to principles
Basic Principles
1. Representation
2. Replication
3. Network Design
4. Sustainable Amount
Need a real
example to
explain these
principles
North-east
New Zealand
1. Representation
• All regions require marine reserves.
• In each region, all major habitats must
be represented in reserves.
Test with just 4 major habitats -
• Harbours and
Estuaries
sheltered
shallow
enclosed
Sheltered waters
less than 50 m
not open to ocean
storms and swell
Open coast and
inner shelf
Outer shelf and
open sea
Existing reserves
represent all four
major habitats
2. Replication
At least three separate (in space)
examples of each major habitat.
Many reasons including:
scientific, conservation, and social
Adding 8 more
reserves would
replicate each
major habitat
3. A Network Design
A network spread over the region to
encourage connections by larval dispersal.
A further 8 reserves
would provide such
a network
Existing reserves
provide few
connections
• But 24 reserves
provide many
connections
4. A Sustainable Amount
The system must be large enough to
maintain itself.
This amount is not known precisely.
It is unlikely to be less than 10% (or more
than 50%).
So establishing at least 10% immediately
is a sensible programme.
This is 10% of the
whole region and
10% of each habitat
That completes the scientific principles.
But science only indicates the constraints.
Many possibilities exist within these
and which of these are chosen is subject
to the full democratic process.
The blue squares
show one of the
alternatives.
• The example given was for 10%
• This would be the minimum for science,
education and recreation.
• At least 20% would be needed for
adequate conservation.
• At least 30% would be needed to
maximise benefits to fisheries
There is much to be done, and time is not on our side.