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The Blob Hit California's Kelp. Protected Kelp Came Back Faster. · How To Protect The Ocean

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  In 2014, two years after California finished building its statewide network of
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  marine protected areas, the Pacific Ocean did something almost nobody expected.
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  A marine heatwave named The Blob hit the coast, and it didn't let go for two years.
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  Kelp forests up and down the state started collapsing.
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  So the real test is how do these kelp forests in this new marine protected
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  area recover after the heat wave?
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  This is what we're gonna be discussing on this episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and I'm a marine biologist and ocean
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  communications manager for a, company called Pisces Oceans.
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  It's a consulting firm that helps ocean projects succeed and have
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  a greater impact on the ocean.
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  Today we're gonna be talking about what happened after the California Marine
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  Protected Area Network went into place.
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  Yesterday's episode was all about the history of how it came into place.
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  Then we're gonna talk about something major that happened was the fact that
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  a heat wave hit two years after it was designated and all hell broke loose.
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  And we're looking at how a network of marine protected areas could recover
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  after a heat wave or was it just the fact that these were paper parks and
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  nobody was actually managing them?
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  So we're gonna talk about that and what happened 'cause, uh, the thing
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  is, like after one of these heat waves hit, like the blob, one of
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  the major heat waves that happened during an El Niño and so many things
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  happened that were bad, can it recover?
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  Is that the idea?
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  I mean, that's what a marine protected area does.
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  It takes away the human aspect of it, the human disturbance, all the extractive
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  processes that can happen, fishing, mining, even some places where you can't
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  do any kind of recreational activities in these marine protected areas to make
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  sure that these areas were gonna be fine so that it could recover faster when
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  these things happen with climate change.
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  So we're gonna dive into actually what happened.
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  So two years after this marine protected area was put together, this network, 2012.
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  Two years later, between 2014 and 2016, a marine heatwave and compounding El
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  Niño conditions hit two years after the network finished, and kelp forests
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  statewide went into a large-scale decline, the exact habitat that the
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  original law was supposed to prioritize.
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  Not only did that happen, but we saw sea stars go through probably the one of the
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  worst cases of, death in that we've seen.
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  Like, just the decrease that happened was unreal.
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  They had sea star wasting disease, which was like a disease that came on
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  because of the heatwave, and we just saw sea stars disintegrate right in
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  front of us, and there was nothing we could do about it until that bacteria or
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  whatever it was that caused it went away.
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  And now sea stars are a little on the recovery, but still, it went through,
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  like, something that was pretty dire.
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  A lot of us thought that sea stars would never be the same again.
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  And the same thing with kelp.
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  When we saw the heatwave happen, kelp can't handle that much heat in that type
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  of range, and so they started dying off.
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  So the big thing is, is like we couldn't do anything about
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  the heatwave at that time.
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  We can't just stop it in the middle of what was happening.
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  So we said, "Hey, how do we recover from this? How do we make sure that these
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  kelp forests continue to thrive after this? Can they rebuild after this?" The
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  problem really comes down to the question of can the kelp habitats that produce
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  and house a huge biodiverse, uh, system, can they recover after the heat wave?
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  And the only way to know that is really to go into how management was done
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  and how they looked at science data to ensure that, you know, the kelp was
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  actually recovering and not just hope for the best after a 10-year review.
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  So that check happened, for the first time as a decadal management review,
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  and it was led by the Department of Fish and Wildlife for the Ocean Protection
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  Council, drawing on long-term monitoring across multiple habitat types, so kelp
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  forests, rocky reefs, mid-depth rocky reefs, sandy beaches and surf zone, deep
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  habitats, and rocky intertidal zones.
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  Twenty-four universities, agencies, and research institutions
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  contributed data to this program.
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  The results came out as seven separate technical reports, plus
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  a synthesis report from an outside research group, the National Center
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  of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis,
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  Specifically so the state wasn't just grading its own work.
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  So it wasn't as if the state went out and collected all the data, did the
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  reports, and everything like that.
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  It was like they had a third party look it over to make sure that
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  the assessment was done properly.
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  So after the heat wave happened, looking at these types of reports
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  and looking at this data was gonna be really important to make sure that the
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  kelp could recover or that we could analyze whether the kelp recovered.
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  Now, a peer review study out of UCLA published in the Journal of Applied
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  Ecology used nearly forty years of satellite imagery from 1984 to 2022
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  to compare kelp recovery inside protected areas against similar
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  unprotected stretches of coastline.
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  The findings of that study found that the kelp forests inside the
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  MPAs recovered measurably faster after the 2014 and 2016 heat wave
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  than kelp outside of the protected areas, with the clearest benefits
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  showing up in Southern California.
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  The proposed mechanism is pretty straightforward.
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  MPAs protect species like California spiny lobster, sheephead, and other predators
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  that kept kelp-eating urchins in check.
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  With those predators intact, urchin populations don't explode into the
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  barren-forming outbreaks that can wipe out a recovering kelp bed.
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  That was the data.
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  That's what they found, was the fact that the predators like the sheephead,
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  spiny lobster, were able to stay there, even though the sea stars that were
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  wiped out from the sea star wasting disease during the heat wave were
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  not there to account for a lot of the predatory acts against sea urchins.
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  So the kelp forests had the ability to recover, whereas in outside the marine
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  protected areas, those predators were gone 'cause they were able to be fished out,
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  and so the population wasn't as strong.
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  Now, hopefully in twenty years from now or another ten years from now, we
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  start seeing a spillover effect of the predators inside the marine protected
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  areas like sheephead, fish, as well as the spiny lobster, to go outside of those
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  boundaries and protect those areas and start feasting on those sea urchins.
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  So that is a big study to show what we needed to know, was the fact that inside
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  a marine protected area, the predators of these sea urchins are protected
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  and that will grow back and recover to make sure that any kinda thing that
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  happens to the kelp, like a marine heat wave, the recovery will be a lot
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  faster if those sea urchin predators aren't there or they're kept in check.
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  And that's just nature for you.
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  If we allow nature to be nature, a lot of the times they will recover,
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  with, of course, some limitations.
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  But this is what happens when you do the right thing and you are in an
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  MPA that is really great to do that.
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  So following that review The California Department of Fish and Wildlife
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  released a formal set of prioritized recommendations in 2023, organized
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  around three areas: MPA governance, the state's MPA management program itself,
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  and the overall network performance.
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  The Ocean Protection Council is now folding those recommendations directly
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  into California's broader 30 by 30 biodiversity commitment, which is
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  protecting 30% of the state's lands and waters by 2030, which we've talked
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  a lot about on this podcast, and treating the existing MPA network,
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  already 16% of state waters, as a foundation to strengthen rather than
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  just a finished project to leave alone.
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  Like I talked to you, uh, yesterday and the day before with Anupa, how the fact
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  that a lot of this reporting didn't come out as new assessments for this area.
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  So this must have been an older report.
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  So but there have been scientific reports that were released.
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  I just wish they were released for a lot of the people that we
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  talked about on Monday, but just it doesn't seem to happen that way.
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  So the fact is that we know that the ten years of monitoring, seven technical
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  reports, one synthesis report, nearly four decades of satellite data in the UCLA
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  study that I talked about, sixteen percent of state waters are currently protected.
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  We know that this is working, and this is a great foundation to build on and
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  maybe expand some MPAs, maybe look at areas where climate change can't have
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  that much of an effect, and we can start prioritizing those areas to be protected.
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  And this is a chance to look at the effectiveness of the MPAs and see where
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  we can put either more or expand some just to make sure that we're protecting
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  more of the state waters because that's an important aspect, right?
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  The same review process is gonna happen in another ten years.
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  Hopefully, they start doing it in smaller chunks because I think that's really
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  important to do it in smaller chunks.
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  But the fact is that this is the way the system is set up.
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  I would prefer, every five years at minimum to do this type of study, uh,
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  and I think that's important to have.
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  But the thing is, is that this MPA system, this network, produces
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  those checkable, assessments to make sure that things are going well.
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  This is not to say that California failed or passed or anything.
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  These assessments are not for that.
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  These are assessments to make sure that if anything has changed, like a
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  marine heatwave, we can see how things are recovering and how they work.
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  In fact, it's a way to say, "Hey, you know what? This works so well
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  that kelp recovered inside the MPAs instead of outside the MPAs, so we
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  should start expanding more." It's a case to have more because we need
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  more kelp forests to be protected.
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  That's the show for today.
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  it's pretty quick and easy, show.
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  It's what we, It's what we do here.
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  We kind of bring you the information because I don't want people to think,
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  "Oh, here's a marine protected area. It's not effective." You know, because we
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  don't really hear about what works when we hear in the press, and this works.
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  So I want you guys to hear it here first before you go off and
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  be like, "Hey, you know what?
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  Like I don't think this is actually working." If you know
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  it works that becomes a big benefit for us, in the future.
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  Now, uh, Thursday's episode, uh, we're gonna shift, uh, from, hey,
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  does this work, does this MPA work, to how do people get heard about
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  what is happening next, right?
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  Or what happens next.
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  And so that's really a callback to, you know, the Monday's episode
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  with Anupa, where we looked at, how this process didn't really allow
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  everybody to be heard, and I think that's really important, to discuss.
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  and that's a good thing because we need to make sure that that process
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  is better, when we go forward.
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  So this is something that's really important to me.
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  I hope it's important to you.
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  That's the episode for today, so thank you so much for joining me on today's episode
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  of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I am your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.