Marine reserves in Southern California

[Empty V]

$100 to $300 to volunteer is what I see and last year when I looked into it it was more from what I can remember...

Last year I paid $200 for 2 days of training in the classroom (Long Beach Aquarium) and pool, all of my materials including survey gear plus a 2 day live-aboard on the peace all inclusive. The training is your only "big" expense , volunteering is free. If you want to do a survey off of a boat they ask for a $30 donation, that's it! When was the last time you were offered a deal like that?

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from but it's incorrect. Again do some research, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Billy

 

[OwenCA]

You are 100% correct Dave. Reef Check's end goal is to provide non-biased scientific data to the people who actually make the decisions. They don't choose to count less or more fish, inverts and algae in certain areas to alter their statistics. They are what they are, straight forward data collectors I know because I'm one of them.

Billy

I don't know about you, Billy, but on every Reef Check survey I have been on (fewer than I would like), I have intentionally ignored those swarms of giant sea bass that always cross my transect, and those hordes of abalones that seem to be everywhere off PV and Malibu, just so that I can skew the results.

In all seriousness though, Jeff, Billy is right that Reef Check's data is as unbiased as any scientific data is going to be - that is the whole raison d'etre (to get all french on you) of the organization. Reef Check wants to provide scientists/policy makers with the hard data that no one else is expending the resources to collect. Without good (i.e., objective) hard data, all we (as a society) have to rely on to make important policy decisions are anecdotal evidence and opinions.

Other organizations (probably more along the lines of what you have in mind) are focused on environmental advocacy and/or (in the case of SM Baykeeper) restoration. I applaud and support those efforts (which shows my personal bias), but they aren't what Reef Check is about.

The idea of Reef Check is to collect good baseline data to see what is happening year after year to determine the health of reefs over time, whether or not conservation efforts are working, etc. The Reef Check data collection protocol has many steps (in training, in data collection and after data is collected) to minimize errors, avoid bias that could affect data, and generally make sure that the aggregated data is accurate, precise, and useful.

Owen

 

[Tailchaser]

Billy/Owen
Reef check is great! but this is not about reef check rather the current mpa's...

The current matter at hand is something needs to change!!!!

Owen you support and applaud the SM baykeepers efforts and yet your one of the same trained surveyors out collecting data. is that biased? Would that be considered a conflict of interest?

Bottom line is YES something needs to change but closing it all down I think is a big mistake...

 

[OwenCA]

Jeff - Not trying to turn this into a reef check thread, but Billy introduced the reef check report as providing more information on the MPAs and you questioned the objectivity/validity of the report. I thought it was important to support Billy's position because I agree with him. Using technicalities to shut people up when they are addressing statements you have made strikes me as unfair.

Re bias - It really depends how you look at "bias". We are being very imprecise about the term, and the fact that individuals who are performing tasks as part of a group project have individual biases does not mean that processes can't be introduced that will minimize/eliminate (to a practical degree) any aggregated effect of those different biases. Minimization/effective elimination of bias (in the data collection process and not the in the individuals themselves) is one of the main purposes of the Reef Check protocol (and the protocol views the concept of "bias" more broadly than just a data collector's environmental or political views).

Re conflict of interest - I don't see it. When I am doing a reef check survey, all I do is count fish and inverts, look at substrate and measure urchins. My political, religious, dietary, etc etc. views do not come up; no one is asking me to represent a point of view or advocate for a position; I am not performing any analyzes, writing any reports or making any arguments. I'm just counting fish.

I believe collecting as much good data as we can is essential to understand the problems the CA marine environment is facing and whether or not different conservation methods are working (e.g., if the MPAs aren't working, we shouldn't have them - I am not fetishistically attached to them, but think expanding them is worth a try until we have more data to determine if/how well they are working), and I think that we can all be a part of those efforts notwithstanding what our views on appropriate remedial efforts should be. If you or Brian Meux or anyone else were to collect data for Reef Check, I would argue the same.

 

[drbill]

Certainly there are some, researchers or not, who will inject their biases into the interpretation of data. However, I think it is less common to collect data with these biases interfering to any significant extent. Fish are either there or not there. Perhaps species misidentifications do occur, but I seriously question whether data collectors would intentionally add to the counts in MPAs and deduct from their totals in non-MPAs just to prove their desired point.

Besides, good scientists look at the unbiased data and form conclusions... even if they run counter to their preconceptions. I know I had to completely revise the hypothesis in my dissertation's first chapter when the data revealed something quite different from expectations.

MPAs work. It is obvious to anyone with a sufficiently long baseline in our waters that current management practices almost universally have not worked.

 

[OwenCA]

MPAs work. It is obvious to anyone with a sufficiently long baseline in our waters that current management practices almost universally have not worked.

I agree that MPAs work. Taking sufficient pressure off highly impacted ecosystems usually gives them some space to rebuild, and past practices in fisheries management around the world have excellent at overestimating abundance and fostering fishery collapse.

I would also agree with Dave that, given what humans have done to the environment over the past few centuries especially, we really need to start moving towards a precautionary approach, showing that practices are not excessively harmful before we engage in them, instead of waiting to see what happens until it is too late. While policy change is difficult and resetting the boundaries of MPAs after they have been set may seem near impossible, I would argue that it is a lot harder to rebuild a collapsed fishery or barren ecosystem.

The issue people who disfavor the MPAs are focusing on is whether the benefits of the MPAs outweigh the negative socio-economic impacts that they will invariably have. I think (but of course can't prove), like you, that they do. However, I also don't fish, spearhunt, eat fish or rely on the fishing industry for my livelihood, so it's easy for me to place the emphasis in the equation on the health of ecosystems over the concerns of people who fish and rely on fishing. If I relied on fishing, I would undoubtedly place more emphasis on maintaining access to productive spots; I recognize that a lot of people do like to fish and rely on fishing to live, and I understand that people in those camps would disagree with me. I respect their right to do so and think their voices need to be heard, because, frankly, a lot of the people who fish/hunt here know these waters better than most policy wogs.

Without getting all Rodney King on everyone, my hope is that the different stakeholders and interest groups (continue to?) cooperate and listen to each other to the extent possible, because if we can't figure out how to balance competing interests here in California and minimize socio-economic disruption while rebuilding seriously damaged ecosystems, how can we expect countries with seriously competing interests to cooperate and develop realistic and effective international and transnational environmental policy, which the world's oceans (among other things) desperately need?

Owen

 

[Tailchaser]

The issue people who disfavor the MPAs are focusing on is whether the benefits of the MPAs outweigh the negative socio-economic impacts that they will invariably have. I think (but of course can't prove), like you, that they do. However, I also don't fish, spearhunt, eat fish or rely on the fishing industry for my livelihood, so it's easy for me to place the emphasis in the equation on the health of ecosystems over the concerns of people who fish and rely on fishing. If I relied on fishing, I would undoubtedly place more emphasis on maintaining access to productive spots; I recognize that a lot of people do like to fish and rely on fishing to live, and I understand that people in those camps would disagree with me. I respect their right to do so and think their voices need to be heard, because, frankly, a lot of the people who fish/hunt here know these waters better than most policy wogs.

Without getting all Rodney King on everyone, my hope is that the different stakeholders and interest groups (continue to?) cooperate and listen to each other to the extent possible, because if we can't figure out how to balance competing interests here in California and minimize socio-economic disruption while rebuilding seriously damaged ecosystems, how can we expect countries with seriously competing interests to cooperate and develop realistic and effective international and transnational environmental policy, which the world's oceans (among other things) desperately need?

Owen

Owen
I agree 100% with you and the need for MPA's and like I have been stating is I do not want to see it completely shut down. I know just as well as everyone else that this is not the same ocean as 20 years ago let alone 5 years ago and I would love to see it come back to the life it once was. I am not taking one side or the other i would just like to see a solution that works for both sides.

I eat very little seafood and when i do its a fish here and there I think in the last year I took all of 4 halibut and less then 10 lobsters... I love to h&l and a majority of the time its catch and release in shallow water where all fish can be released safely. I do not want to loose the right to do the things I love... And yes if something does not change there will be no more fish... so what can be done that works for both parties...

 

[Empty V]

The question that I think cannot be answered is, are we beyond the point of no return or is shutting the entire coast and local islands down completely our only hope for regeneration of the u/w ecosystem?

I sure as hell hope either of those are not the case.

Billy

 

[drbill]

I look at some of the big successes, perhaps most noticeable in our region being the apparent recovery of the giant sea bass, as an indication that IF pressures are removed completely in some areas, systems CAN rebound... I like to think optimistically. Some of the improvements ma not be noticeable in my remaining lifetime... but I have faith my son or (gulp) grandchildren will see them IF we act appropriately.

 

[diverrex]

Last week I went to Florida (no diving) and we went to Kennedy Space Center (really cool exhibits if you are ever in the area). NASA owns a bunch of land around the space center to keep a big buffer away from development. The Dept. of Interior runs it as a nature reserve and since it's near the space center they keep human interaction to a real minimum. We saw 5 alligators in the canals (with many more reportedly in the reserve), we didn't see any but they told us the Mantees are thriving and best of all they have 16 Bald Eagle nests in the reserve and they are reproducing. Wildlife can recover if we give them space and leave them alone.