A Review of Traditional and Ecosystem-based Fishery Management in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sancturary

The MBNMS study area appears to be heavily protected from overfishing and the many layers of regulations from the different management agencies prevent a large number of exploitable species from being fished at any appreciable level. This is particularly true of species in soft bottom areas of the nearshore and shelf habitats, the shelf break habitat, the deep slope habitat and the rise habitat. In federal waters a small number of species are presently being fished at moderate to optimum exploitation levels and the few species that were overfished in the past are now in rebuilding plans and their habitat has been heavily protected by the Rockfish Conservation Area (RCA). The most recent available landings (2006) show that the ports in or near the MBNMS have had large to extreme declines in the value of their landings over the previous 10 years. These most recent declines are primarily due to increased management measures (e.g., reduced catch limits and the RCA), in response to earlier stock declines, and do not reflect continuing declines of these species, especially the dominant exploited species. Numerous stock assessments show that the populations are responding to these management measures with total groundfish biomass rising substantially since about 1999. Thus management measures made prior to the establishment of the many MPAs in the MBNMS study area is preserving and enhancing ecosystem function and biodiversity. The ports of Santa Cruz, Monterey and Morro Bay are presently in severe decline and the loss of fishing infrastructure is a real threat to the fishing industry in these ports. Further declines in the value of the fisheries in the study area should be expected due to the very extensive areas protected by the federal MPAs, state MPAs and state waters trawl closures since 2006 (i.e. 62% of the total study area). It appears that the several agencies that have designated areas in the MBNMS as MPAs have acted in an un-coordinated manner resulting in the present situation with 64% of the MBNMS study area in MPAs, no analyses of the combined affects of MPAs and previous management actions, and no coherent overall strategy or goal.