Though “snapper” in these parts, as you may well know, is a code name for rockfish. And rockfish have me worried. I’m afraid there just aren’t enough of them for all us Safeway shoppers—much less for West Coast and Asian live-fish delicacy markets.

Let’s face it, it’s not only swordfish and Patagonian toothfish (a.k.a. Chilean seabass) and some of the higher-profile fisheries that are in trouble. The lowly rockfish, a group of less than a dozen commercially important species and 50-plus lesser species, is seeing serious declines as well. For example, losses in stocks of bocaccio, a rockfish that flourished off the coast in the 1960s, today approach 90 percent.

Overfishing is one important reason, exacerbated now by the live-fish fishery, which mines nearshore waters for small (plate-size) reef fish—rockfish, cabezon, sculpin, lingcod. These fish tend to be extremely slow-growing, long-lived, and residential; that is, they don’t move around much and are easily caught. According to Department of Fish and Game data, live-fish landings increased 513 percent in Monterey County alone between 1997 and 1998. [More on that in the next Coast & Ocean—Ed.]

But I’m not about to advise you to give up that snapper dinner. I’m here to tell you that there’s hope for the rockfish—and, I would argue, for the rest of us as well. And that hope, believe it or not, lies in governmental actions that are taking place even as I write. People who are genuinely worried about the ecological integrity of our long and varied coast—and so about rockfish and lots of other critters, even ones we don’t (and wouldn’t!) eat—are working to make changes. Their intent is to protect the unique values of the underwater world that, in part, makes California what it is.
Whether as a fisher’s means of making a living or enjoying some recreation, a sea kayaker’s way of finding a few hours of bobbing bliss, a diver’s entree into a world that few of us land dwellers can fully appreciate—or simply the three-dimensional world in which the rockfish lives, grows to maturity, and reproduces—this watery margin of our coast is, we all agree, a special place. We need to manage our behavior there.

Several recent and ongoing initiatives bear on this problem. Two are at the state level, a third is a federal-state undertaking. All will have profound consequences for California’s near-shore waters.

In October 1999, Governor Gray Davis signed AB 993 (Shelley), the Marine Life Protection Act, one goal of which is to halt the decline of fish stocks by preserving critical undersea habitat. The Department of Fish and Game is to convene an expert panel and devise a plan—due by April 2002—for revamping marine protected areas, focusing on habitats and species most in need of safeguarding.

One important provision of AB 993 would establish marine reserves of a kind known as no-take refuges: waters strictly closed to fishing and other extractive uses. The goals of these reserves would be to protect or restore rare, threatened, or endangered plants and animals; representative marine species, communities, habitats, and ecosystems; and marine gene pools. In addition, these marine no-take zones are to contribute to the understanding and management of marine resources and ecosystems through scientific study.

Fishers are worried but cautiously supportive. “There are mixed feelings,” says Vern Goehring, consultant for the 400-member Sea Urchin Harvesters Association, but notes that fishing organizations “are intrigued by the science that shows in some cases [no-take zones] might be beneficial to fishing.”

California’s 15 no-take areas encompass only about 0.2 percent of the state’s ocean waters, which extend three miles out from the mainland coast, says marine biologist Paul Reilly at Fish and Game. “We’ve created wilderness areas and parks on land for decades: that kind of protection is long overdue in our oceans,” commented Karen Garrison, senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “There is ample evidence that wilderness waters will protect the diversity of ocean life and provide safe havens where depleted fisheries can rebuild.”

Ron Fujita, a marine ecologist with the Environmental Defense Fund, explains it this way: “Having a diversity of ages and sizes, including plenty of older, larger fish, appears to be critically important for many fish species. Big fish produce many more eggs than small fish; for example, it takes about 200 small adult snappers (typical of a heavily fished population) to produce as many eggs as one large snapper. Well-designed marine reserves should enhance fisheries in adjacent waters by exporting both baby fish and larger fish.”
California’s fishermen can agree on the concept, but they worry that environmental advocates may shut them out. “We propose looking at different types of reserves,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “In some areas, reserves where all human activity is restricted can be extremely beneficial. In others you might ban certain types of fishing gear, maybe, or oil development.” In still others, resident fish would be protected but migratory fish might be legal to take, Grader suggested. “We’re open-minded,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “but we’re not willing to jump in with these people who want to lock up the ocean without some good science behind them.”

Scientists who advocate no-take reserves maintain that they allow good science to take place. Such wild areas can help us to understand the natural variability of marine ecosystems, both with and without extractive uses; they can help us to understand population biology, biodiversity, the effects of pollution, the effectiveness of various management techniques. There is so much we don’t know, it only makes sense to take a step back, preserve some areas from exploitation of any kind, and observe and learn from the workings of nature, argues Fujita.
Significantly, the Marine Life Protection Act does not prescribe a minimum size for wilderness waters, anticipate specific locations for refuges, or use a “one-size-fits-all” approach. What evolves from it “will depend on how much value is put on biodiversity, aesthetics, recreation, fisheries,” says Fujita.

Complementing the Marine Life Protection Act, in mid-January 2000 the California Resources Agency sent to the Legislature a report entitled Improving California’s System of Marine Managed Areas. This report reflects three years of scientific analysis, public hearings, and study of California laws pertaining to ocean resources along our coast. Prepared by a team headed by Brian Baird, California Ocean Program manager, it proposes that the confusing mix of park and reserve classifications along the California coast be streamlined.

“The current system is a regulatory crazy-quilt,” created ad hoc over five decades, explains Secretary of Resources Mary Nichols. “We are suggesting the conversion of 18 different classifications into a more easily understandable system of six classifications that everyone can use to help protect and manage our ocean and coastal resources.”

One of the new categories, Marine Reserve, will subsume the state’s marine reserves and refuges, and will no doubt take in any new marine protected areas proposed under AB 993. The only activities permitted in these new reserves will be research, restoration, and monitoring. All living and nonliving marine resources will be fully protected.

In the Channel Islands, meanwhile, these same goals are being actively pursued by means of “a very structured, user-oriented process,” says Ed Cassano, manager of the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS). This effort, directed jointly by the Marine Sanctuary and Department of Fish and Game, will lead to decisions in the next few months that should, Cassano suggests, provide a “model for how the State ultimately will deal with similar issues.”

The foundation of the Channel Islands process is a Marine Reserves Working Group and its support teams, the Science Panel and the Socioeconomic Team. The working group was created to represent the full range of community perspectives, including the public-at-large, commercial and recreational fishing and diving interests, and nonconsumptive interests. It will eventually provide a consensus recommendation to the CINMS Advisory Council regarding the establishment of marine reserves within the sanctuary. As the working group evaluates potential reserve scenarios, the science panel and socioeconomic team will provide comment on the relevant impacts of each scenario, and on its ability to meet the objectives established by the working group. As of mid-January, meetings were being held to set overall goals and objectives, with all-day monthly meetings scheduled through June, when conclusions will be summarized.

One outcome, almost certainly, will be the establishment of no-take zones within the Channel Islands Sanctuary—to join the small (37-acre) reserve that already exists at Anacapa Island’s north shore. Issues to be resolved will include where they will be located, what particular habitats and species they will protect, how large and how interconnected they will be. If as much as 20 percent of the islands’ waters—or 25,000 acres—is placed off limits to fishing, the area that receives such protection throughout California will quadruple.

The critical factor in all this decision-making, as Cassano emphasizes, is community. Scientists and commercial fishers, coastal residents and recreational divers alike must make themselves heard. It is easy to let emotions carry the day, and that pitfall needs to be avoided. Grader and Glen Spain of the Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, in a statement prepared for Fishermen’s News, point out that “there is no reason we cannot find a common agenda on this issue, nor any reason on land or sea why fishermen of all people should not be taking the lead in making marine protected areas a useful tool for the protection of the ecosystem we depend upon for our livelihoods.”

There is a growing consensus that new initiatives are needed. “Traditional fishery management tools haven’t prevented fish declines. We need a new mindset and an expanded set of tools,” says Mia Tegner of Scripps Institute of Oceanography. “No-take reserves, in my view, are one of the most promising tools available to keep ocean ecosystems healthy.” Fujita adds that although fishery management is critically important to marine conservation, “models and catch limits protect ‘paper’ fish. Marine reserves protect real fish.”

The measures I’ve just outlined seem to be heading us in a promising direction. In the state’s coastal waters, where the prevailing management approach has been multiple-use (“something for everyone”), some areas will be set aside for the native denizens: abalone and urchin and, yes, the lowly rockfish, who might just be able to grow to a size that allows her to lay her two-plus million eggs per year, which will then hatch and in turn grow to a productive size. While we humans might not receive direct practical benefit from such areas (in the form of “private reserve” snapper fillets, say), we will surely gain much in understanding, aesthetic pleasure, and—let’s trust—healthier fisheries.

Anne Canright guiltlessly loves a good calamari steak and will walk miles for wild-caught Alaska salmon (but don’t get her started on farm-raised Atlantic salmon).

Improving California’s System of Marine Managed Areas can be found at: ceres.ca.gov/cra/ocean
/Final_MMAS/index.html.