Cassandra M. Brooks

A practical approach for putting people in ecosystem‐based ocean planning

Marine and coastal ecosystems provide important benefits and services to coastal communities across the globe, but assessing the diversity of social relationships with oceans can prove difficult for conservation scientists and practitioners. This presents barriers to incorporating social dimensions of marine ecosystems into ecosystem-based planning processes, which can in turn affect the success of planning and management initiatives. Following a global assessment of social research and related planning practices in ocean environments, we present a step-by-step approach for natural resource planning practitioners to more systematically incorporate social data into ecosystem-based ocean planning. Our approach includes three sequential steps: (1) develop a typology of ocean-specific human uses that occur within the planning region of interest; (2) characterize the complexity of these uses, including the spatiotemporal variability, intensity, and diversity thereof, as well as associated conflicts and compati...

Competing values on the Antarctic high seas: CCAMLR and the challenge of marine-protected areas

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has been lauded as a leader in high seas conservation. Highlighting its leadership, CCAMLR joined the international movement to designate a representative network of marine-protected areas (MPAs) throughout the world’s oceans by 2012. Over the last decade, CCAMLR has been working towards this goal convening a series of workshops and celebrating their first Southern Ocean MPA in 2009. In 2011, plans for large MPAs in the Ross Sea and East Antarctic came up for discussion but their adoption has stalled due to Member States’ objections, with the primary concern being interference with fishing. In July 2013, CCAMLR’s Scientific Committee and Commission convened a special intersessional meeting dedicated to making progress on the Ross Sea and East Antarctic MPAs. Progress was again stalled due to Member’s objections and the Russian delegation’s concerns over the legal capacity of CCAMLR to adopt Southern Ocean MPAs. To address potential barriers to MPA adoption, including fishing interests, I provide a synthesis of the CCAMLR MPA process to date and then analyse CCAMLR fishing trends from 1982 to 2012. The results show that since 1982, the number of fishing States has increased four-fold, correlating with the rise of toothfish fisheries (sold on the market as “Chilean sea bass”). While historically, and in the present, krill (Euphasia superba) comprise the largest catch, toothfish (Dissostichus spp.) bring in 20 times more profit. While the MPA proposals under consideration in 2012/2013 were designed specifically to balance conservation and fishing interests, they would displace some toothfish fishing and would limit potential future access to Southern Ocean resources. The shift in balance among fishing States along with the increasing pressure to find more toothfish fisheries may be interfering with CCAMLR’s ability to effectively implement MPAs in the Convention Area.

Science-based management in decline in the Southern Ocean

The burden of proof is being turned upside down With an internationally lauded approach to conserving Southern Ocean ecosystems (1), the healthiest marine ecosystems on Earth, the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), has committed to adopting marine protected areas (MPAs) in the waters around Antarctica (2). But conflict over MPAs has led CCAMLR member states to disregard the best available science, distort the foundational rules of their convention, break trust, and threaten the integrity of one of the worlds most well-regarded science-based multinational governance efforts. With negotiations resuming at the CCAMLR meeting beginning 17 October, we offer recommendations aimed at implementing effective Southern Ocean MPAs, upholding CCAMLRs mandate, and maintaining its global leadership in ecosystem-based management. Given the historic conservation and diplomatic success of CCAMLR and Antarctic governance writ large, if we cannot adopt meaningful MPAs in the Southern Ocean, it does not bode well for doing so in the rest of the high seas.

Antarctica and the strategic plan for biodiversity

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, adopted under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, provides the basis for taking effective action to curb biodiversity loss across the planet by 2020—an urgent imperative. Yet, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, which encompass 10% of the planet’s surface, are excluded from assessments of progress against the Strategic Plan. The situation is a lost opportunity for biodiversity conservation globally. We provide such an assessment. Our evidence suggests, surprisingly, that for a region so remote and apparently pristine as the Antarctic, the biodiversity outlook is similar to that for the rest of the planet. Promisingly, however, much scope for remedial action exists.

Physical–biological interactions influencing large toothfish over the Ross Sea shelf

Abstract We add comments to a recent series of publications in peer-reviewed journals concerning the distribution of large Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) found over the inner shelf of the Ross Sea. We note that earlier fish ecologists advanced innovative hypotheses invoking physical–biological interactions with life history, and that these, far from being disproved, have been relegated by more immediately pressing management concerns. We argue that, despite the considerable advances achieved by research groups working on D. mawsoni, an understanding of distribution and abundance is incomplete without reference to the physical structure that supports their life history. We briefly consider hypotheses highlighted by the recent literature in the context of major features of the shelf circulation in the Ross Sea, in particular intrusions of modified Circumpolar Deep Water along trough systems. We suggest physical–biological interactions that may be involved and call for improvements in the monitoring programme that can help test between the competing hypotheses.

Assessing trade-offs in large marine protected areas

Large marine protected areas (LMPAs) are increasingly being established and have a high profile in marine conservation. LMPAs are expected to achieve multiple objectives, and because of their size are postulated to avoid trade-offs that are common in smaller MPAs. However, evaluations across multiple outcomes are lacking. We used a systematic approach to code several social and ecological outcomes of 12 LMPAs. We found evidence of three types of trade-offs: trade-offs between different ecological resources (supply trade-offs); trade-offs between ecological resource conditions and the well-being of resource users (supply-demand trade-offs); and trade-offs between the well-being outcomes of different resource users (demand trade-offs). We also found several divergent outcomes that were attributed to influences beyond the scope of the LMPA. We suggest that despite their size, trade-offs can develop in LMPAs and should be considered in planning and design. LMPAs may improve their performance across multiple social and ecological objectives if integrated with larger-scale conservation efforts.

Comments on “The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni

We expand the paper by Hanchet et al. (Hydrobiologia 761:397–414, 2015), published in Hydrobiologia, by elaborating upon neutral buoyancy, a critical aspect of Antarctic toothfish life history that was only briefly treated by those authors. Neutral buoyancy, although not common among adult notothenioid fish, is an attribute that expands the water column niche space of this species beyond that available to the bottom-dwelling toothfish that were emphasized in the review. Conversely, also not well covered in the review are the implications involved in the suspected absence of neutral buoyancy in the so-called post-spawning, fat-depleted “axe-handle” fish.

Comments on “The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni): biology, ecology, and life history in the Ross Sea region,” by S. Hanchet et al.

We expand the paper by Hanchet et al. (Hydrobiologia 761:397–414, 2015), published in Hydrobiologia, by elaborating upon neutral buoyancy, a critical aspect of Antarctic toothfish life history that was only briefly treated by those authors. Neutral buoyancy, although not common among adult notothenioid fish, is an attribute that expands the water column niche space of this species beyond that available to the bottom-dwelling toothfish that were emphasized in the review. Conversely, also not well covered in the review are the implications involved in the suspected absence of neutral buoyancy in the so-called post-spawning, fat-depleted “axe-handle” fish.