Impacts on Fishing Communities
While most of the OPC-funded projects focus on tracking changes inside and outside the MPAs,
Laurie Richmond, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental planning at Humboldt State, will be
conducting research to discover the impact MPAs have had on commercial fishing industries and to examine the health and well-being of California’s fishing communities.
“In terms of this type of holistic program with a real commitment to tracking changes over time and effect, it’s pretty unique,” says Dr. Richmond. “The state of California has put substantial money toward monitoring and understanding how it’s working.”
Richmond and her team, including members of
Ecotrust and
Strategic Earth Consulting, will be conducting focus group meetings at 24 ports—from Crescent City to San Diego—as well as analyzing the state’s landings data to assess the socioeconomic health of the ports and fishing communities.
The state wants to know how the MPA fishing restrictions are impacting these communities, especially considering the immense economic value of California’s marine resources. Richmond’s findings will inform long-term MPA management and monitoring.
Another project continues to bring researchers and recreational fisherman together on catch-and-release fishing expeditions to collect data on species inside and outside the MPAs. This collaboration, called the
California Collaborative Fisheries Research Project (CCFRP), was first established by Dr. Starr at MLML and
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo biology professor Dean Wendt, Ph.D., during the
MPA baseline monitoring phase.
“It’s a great outreach tool for the state, because it gives people who have been impacted by the MPAs a chance to be involved in the research, while at the same time giving them an idea of how the areas in and outside of the MPAs are diverging,” says Starr. “And the rigorous data collection is helping us assess the health of the entire region, but especially inside the MPA.”
CCFRP researchers collect information on the size, diversity and movements of fish species and also track changes over time. As the waters off California’s coast continue to become warmer, researchers will be able to track whether certain species adapt to the new temperatures, migrate or become threatened, explains Starr. Where they go and how they adapt—or don’t—will impact the fishing industry, as well as the ocean’s food chain. For example, Starr says that MPA monitoring data may show the presence of different animals in central and northern California that usually inhabit Southern California.