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Who Really Wins When Marine Sanctuaries Are Opened? · How To Protect The Ocean

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  When politicians say they're helping fishermen by opening protected
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  areas to fishing, the first question we should ask is simple.
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  Which fishermen are we benefiting?
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
• 0:12
  If you wanna get stay updated on the ocean every weekday, hit that follow
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  button right now on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss tomorrow's story.
• 0:21
  And you're not gonna wanna miss tomorrow's story 'cause we're gonna be
• 0:23
  talking about pilot whales and noise.
• 0:26
  It's gonna be really interesting.
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  Now, the Trump administration has announced actions that would reopen
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  previously protected areas, marine sanctuaries, to commercial fishing.
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  And, you know, one of the things when we first see is like, this is awful.
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  You know, we've heard that he wanted to do this before, Trump and the
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  administration wanted to do this before.
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  And we know it's awful, and I'm part of a group that does action and
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  does science communication around, like, making sure people know.
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  And one of my good friends that I do a podcast with, Polar Bears in Flip-Flops,
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  Angelo Villagomez, had a great video, and I'll paraphrase what he talked about
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  in this video, but also link to that video on Instagram that I saw it in.
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  He's on TikTok as well with the same video.
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  But essentially, he's looking at, like, they're opening the
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  sanctuaries in the Mariana Trench.
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  They're opening it in Papahānaumokuākea and a lot in the American overseas
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  territories in the Pacific, which is mostly populated by
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  indigenous Pacific Americans.
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  And so what we see here is the fact that, hey, they're gonna roll back these
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  protections to allow fishing to happen.
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  So you would think that they would be able to fish and make some money off of it.
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  Which look, opening up to fishing a protected area that was closed to protect
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  fishing, because when we have a marine protected area, to close that, um,
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  you wanna make-- to close that to a, for a marine protected area and allow
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  the fish to recover and then grow in abundance and biomass, so number and size.
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  And then spill over into the outside of those boundaries so
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  that people can fish forever.
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  That's the idea.
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  But when you start to open up the sanctuary, right away we're like,
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  "No, this is not a good idea." The sanctuary was there for a reason.
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  A lot of them were expanded upon for reasons, and good reasons, scientific
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  reasons, and conservation reasons.
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  But then now all of a sudden you're opening it.
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  Not a good idea from the long-term aspect of it.
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  But then also, like, who benefits?
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  That's what it really comes down to, 'cause there's a
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  little bit of an interest.
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  Like Angelo starts to talk about in his video that I'll link
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  to that, hey, you know what?
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  Not everybody that you think benefits, benefits.
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  Like the local people, local indigenous people in the Pacific Islands aren't
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  really benefiting because they're opening up to commercial fishing and
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  not necessarily artisanal fishing.
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  And supporters say it's good for American seafood production,
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  but the critics say that it benefits large commercial interests more
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  than small fishing communities or local fishing communities.
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  And today I wanna look beyond the politics because look, we know
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  the politics in the US sucks.
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  like right now from an environmental perspective.
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  I wanna go beyond the politics, and I wanna ask the bigger question.
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  Who should benefit from public ocean resources?
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  So let's look at what's essentially happening.
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  The administration moved to allow this commercial fishing
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  in previously protected waters.
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  It includes areas that have restrictions designed to protect ecosystems, like
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  I mentioned, and the supporters argue that regulations are unnecessary
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  in these areas and harm economic opportunities, which a lot of people
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  are just like, "We just wanna fish more, and this is how we're gonna do it."
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  Now, the opponents of this action to remove these protections argue that
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  protection existed for a reason.
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  And to be honest, they were working.
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  There's data to say that there is an increase in fisheries, and that's
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  something that's really important.
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  And I've explained how MPAs work, so we don't have to go into that.
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  We know that this is an important part of ocean conservation.
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  We know they work as long as they're in force.
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  But many people hear protected area and assume that no one can enter.
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  Most marine protected areas have very different levels of protection.
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  Some will allow fishing, depending.
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  Some will allow recreational fishing, local fishing.
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  Some will have, like, restrict, like, specific gear, and some
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  prohibit extraction entirely.
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  A proper MPA, marine protected area, will prohibit any kind of
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  extraction, whether it's for fisheries resources, whether it's for mining.
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  Sometimes they don't even allow scientific discovery or studies to
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  happen, which sometimes it's important.
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  But I want you to think of a protected area as a savings account.
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  You leave money untouched today, so there's money available
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  tomorrow, and it'll grow.
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  Slowly, but it'll grow.
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  And a lot of the times, when you leave that money in, you realize
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  it grows a lot more than you think and faster than you think, as long
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  as you don't touch that money.
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  Well, the same idea applies for fisheries populations.
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  And I think this is where fisheries closures have worked in the past,
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  especially small and large scale.
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  We've seen them actually work.
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  We've seen them grow.
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  We've seen the fish numbers grow.
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  We've seen the fish biomass grow.
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  And then they spill over.
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  It takes some time, but these protected areas, these sanctuaries…
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  Papahānaumokuākea has been a sanctuary for quite a long time, over a decade now.
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  And so we're seeing changes happen to the system.
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  We're allowing that system to recover.
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  And sometimes, you know, when you sacrifice the short-term economic
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  goals, you get long-term sustainability.
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  And that's what really is the patience that's required.
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  That's what it really comes down to.
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  But the real debate isn't whether fishing is good or bad.
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  It's about who benefits when protections are removed.
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  Because let's be honest, like, unfortunately, with this administration,
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  there are certain people who benefit.
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  The people who speak or have access to the administration and want to exploit
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  natural resources, they tend to win out.
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  Commercial fishing is not just one thing, it's everything.
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  There are small scale fishers, and there are indigenous fisheries.
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  There are large industrial operations.
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  Like, there's a lot of different things like, scales and
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  different types of fishing.
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  And often the benefits are distributed unevenly.
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  'Cause I want you to think about, like, indigenous fisheries or
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  even small scale fisheries.
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  These are fishers that go out, and they take what they can have.
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  They can sell them off, or they can give to their communities.
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  Or they can sell to their communities or barter or trade.
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  And they do it sustainably, so they can fish again tomorrow and
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  tomorrow and the next generation, the next generation, next generation.
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  Commercial fishing is a little bit different.
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  It's looking for money, and it has a lot more capacity to hold fish.
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  Oftentimes or sometimes they're not on the right side of the law.
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  But they're there to grab as many fish as they can.
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  And sustainability, they look at the numbers.
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  They don't look at the communities that are affected.
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  They don't look in indigenous communities.
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  They don't look at local communities, non-indigenous communities,
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  and they don't really care about what's happening locally.
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  They care about how much money hits their bottom line, how much
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  profit can they make off these fish?
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  And so when it's commercial fishing, you see some major, like, trawlers.
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  You'll see some major, like, massive fish that can hold just as many fish
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  as a small town or even a big city.
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  And so that could be quite dangerous when we're looking at sustainability.
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  But I want to ask you this, like, when you hear the word fisherman
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  or fisher, who do you picture.
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  ' Cause that's, something that I would love to know.
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  Do you kinda see, like, small boats leaving coastal harbor?
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  Do you kinda picture, like, family-run operations?
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  Or do you, like, see these massive, massive ships, like industrial
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  fleets with corporate ownership?
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  Or even sometimes ownership where you just don't know who owns
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  cause the paperwork is so crazy.
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  Usually that's illegal fishing.
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  I've seen all of them.
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  And I think what we picture as the fisher, and I don't like
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  saying fisherman just because it's gender bias, but, like, fisher.
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  We picture somebody, sometimes, like, for me, I picture, like,
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  a small town fisher, right?
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  A local fisher who
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  knows the area very well.
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  People that I've gone on boats with to do sampling with because they're
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  interested in what's happening to the fish that have… And they
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  know more and they tell us a lot of what's been going on for years.
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  That's the fisher that I predict, like, that I picture.
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  You know, family-run operations, that kinda stuff.
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  I don't picture the industrial fleet.
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  I don't picture, like, corporate ownership and corporate fleets,
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  'cause I don't like that.
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  I want the fisher to win.
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  I want the local fisher to win.
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  'Cause they tend not to do illegal fishing.
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  They tend not to take everything they can.
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  They tend to want to fish forever, and they want to take care of their ocean.
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  And I think depending on how you see it and depending where you come from is
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  really how you look at fishing overall.
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  And I think, like, opening up the sanctuary I think is a bad thing.
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  Overall, I think it's a bad thing.
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  But I think opening up the sanctuary for industrial fishing and not other
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  small town fishing, small scale fishing, I think is a huge mistake.
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  When you go back to these fishers, when you talk about how public messaging
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  often focuses on local fishers.
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  But the largest economic benefits can go elsewhere.
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  I heard this at a conference I was at this week, and somebody said,
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  "Hey, if you ever see a fisher get interviewed, it's usually the
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  fisher who may not look the best.
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  May not look clean cut.
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  May look a little dirty, just coming in from fishing.
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  May not have all their teeth.
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  They may not look the greatest.
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  They may look like, oh, this is what we picture a fisher." And the media does
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  that oftentimes, more times than not.
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  But they also get a local fisher, whether it's a conflict or whether
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  it's something that's a benefit or they're doing something really cool.
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  They'll get a local fisher.
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  They rarely interview the fleets, the industrial fleets,
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  and those corporate heads.
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  You rarely see that.
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  There's kind of behind a wall.
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  And I think that's like It's sad in a way because that's what we picture,
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  and so maybe we don't see fishing as bad if we're picturing the local
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  fisher because you want them to win.
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  It's like an underdog.
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  You want the underdog to win.
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  But the thing is, is like these industrial fleets come in, they
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  come around local areas, they grab all their fish, they leave.
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  And the ocean resources are like, they're public resources.
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  I feel like when you look at that, you're like, who gets access?
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  Who makes the money?
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  Who bears the risk?
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  Who bears the consequences if the stocks decline?
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  If a commercial fishing fleet comes in and takes a lot of the fish and
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  there's nothing left or very little left for the local population,
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  who really wins in that area?
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  Obviously, the ocean's not winning, but also the local community's
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  not winning who's taken care of that coastal area for a long time.
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  This is where I feel like life is unfair.
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  Obviously the news of opening up the sanctuary is not good news.
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  It may not affect most people who are not really thinking of
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  the ocean on a regular basis.
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  They're just like, "Oh, that opens.
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  They'll probably close it later on.
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  They'll probably open it up." Who knows what they're thinking.
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  Those are the people I don't usually talk to on this show because they're not really
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  thinking, they don't usually seek out something about how to protect the ocean.
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  But this is something that's really important.
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  I want , the local fisher to be able to fish sustainably 'cause
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  they take care of the area.
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  I want the indigenous fisher to win because they take care of the ocean.
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  They take care of their coastline.
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  And I think that's really important.
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  The one thing I've learned covering fisheries issues is that these
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  debates are rarely simple, and it's unfortunately conservation versus fishing.
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  And it could be both, it really can be both.
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  But I think it really depends.
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  'Cause like communities depend on the fishing, there's an importance
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  on that healthy ecosystem.
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  And then like balancing economic needs with conservation
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  goals is really important.
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  And I think that's something that's really good, 'cause like a fish that's
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  harvested today cannot reproduce tomorrow.
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  We have to know that.
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  So making sure you catch specific types of fish, specific genders of fish, non,
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  like egg-carrying fish and so forth.
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  And that's why fisheries management is always balancing like present
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  benefits against future opportunities.
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  But unfortunately, when politics are involved, it often says who's
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  lobbying the government more?
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  That's the result that happens.
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  And I think that's a really, really big problem.
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  And it's a problem that a lot of fisheries communities get because
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  they can't communicate effectively or properly or get access to the
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  right people on a daily basis.
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  And I think that's really important.
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  And communication is so important in these ocean projects, whether it's a
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  fisheries community, whether it's an indigenous community, whether it's a
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  local community that's trying to stand up and try to get baseline data, try to
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  understand their area, try to put like a scientific methodology to understanding
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  the health of their ecosystem.
• 11:32
  That communication and the projects that need to go in require some help,
• 11:36
  require collaborators, and that's why they sponsor this show, Pisces Ocean,
• 11:39
  who I work for, piscesoceans.ca.
• 11:41
  We are here to help your ocean project.
• 11:44
  If you have an ocean project and you want that extra help,
• 11:46
  you may not have the capacity.
• 11:47
  We have that extra resource.
• 11:49
  We can provide that extra resource from project management
• 11:51
  to strategy to communications.
• 11:54
  We can do it all.
• 11:55
  We can help you, and we wanna help you 'cause ocean impact is really important.
• 11:58
  The impact that local communities have on the ocean is extremely important.
• 12:02
  Sometimes they don't have the capacity or the money to have
• 12:05
  that capacity to get there.
• 12:07
  But proposals and now grants are really focusing in on local
• 12:10
  communities and local projects, and we wanna help that local project.
• 12:13
  So go to piscesoceans.ca.
• 12:16
  I'll put the link in the show notes, and you'll be able to have access to that.
• 12:20
  So let's look at what's happening next.
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  For this, the rollback of the marine sanctuary protections, we're probably
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  seeing conservation groups that are likely to challenge this decision, not only in
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  the press, not only communication-wise, but probably in the courts.
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  I know of some organizations that are already in court with the administration.
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  And let's be honest, a lot of these things that the Trump administration
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  has announced have been won from the environmental perspective in the court.
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  So that could happen as well, and it is likely gonna go to court.
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  The fishing industry groups will probably support greater access,
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  because that's what they want.
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  And scientists will continue monitoring fish populations and ecosystem impact.
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  Angelo has mentioned this on the Two Polar Bears in Flip-flops Podcast because
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  he said, "Look, this is an opportunity for us to gather data, to see how good
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  the situation is or how healthy these marine sanctuaries are after being closed
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  down for so long, and then the impacts of reopening it and fishing to be able
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  to see what the impacts are, whether it be negative, positive, like mild.
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  We'll see what happens." So I think this is something that's really important.
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  And then of course, like the midterms coming up, it's gonna
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  be really important to vote.
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  If you're an American and you want these marine sanctuaries to stay intact, you're
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  gonna wanna vote opposite of what this administration is, so that you can stop
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  this administration from doing all these rollbacks for environmental regulations.
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  Because future administrations can actually alter protections again.
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  So if you have the Congress and you have the Senate that are looking out
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  for not only economic development but also environmental protections, which
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  they're not mutually exclusive, they can be together, that's gonna be a
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  really important thing in the future.
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  So don't knock these, , this is a very important election from an environmental
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  perspective coming up in the US.
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  Now, we don't know what's gonna happen.
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  Whether this is gonna go through, whether it's not gonna go through.
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  But speaking up and voting is going to be something that's
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  really gonna be important.
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  So that's gonna be something that we're gonna have to look
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  out for, in the long run.
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  And to be honest, that's like ultimately what this story is about.
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  It's not about politics.
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  It's not even about fishing in a way.
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  It's about how we manage something that belongs to all of us.
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  This is an ocean that belongs to really the indigenous people
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  and the Pacific Islanders.
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  It's really about how we manage this, and how we look at who is being impacted the
• 14:28
  most, especially in these local areas.
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  I think it's really interesting.
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  The debate over protected area waters isn't really about
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  whether people should fish.
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  It's about whether short-term benefits today are worth
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  the potential cost tomorrow.
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  That's really what we're talking about here.
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  Cause as I said last Friday, when you close down a marine
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  protected area, it normally works.
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  If you do it properly, enforce it properly, it's not a
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  paper park, it usually works.
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  So it's a matter of like, what do we wanna do in the future?
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  What do we want our oceans to look like in the future?
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  How do we want our people to benefit in the future?
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  Because once a fish population declines, rebuilding it can take years,
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  decades, or even sometimes longer.
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  Like the cod population in the North Atlantic has not recovered fully or
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  even close to what it was in the past.
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  And now we're opening up the cod populations for industrial
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  fishing way too soon.
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  And it's a political decision that is probably influenced by lobbying.
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  So again, who wins in that matter?
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  It's not the local fisheries.
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  It's not the local fishing communities.
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  It's the industrial fleet.
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  And that's why decisions about public ocean resources really matter.
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  I think it really does So anyway, we're gonna be talking about this in the future.
• 15:35
  We'll be following this story.
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  I think it's really important.
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  But if you want to follow this story here, you can follow How to Protect the
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  And then, yeah, we're gonna go forward.
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  what we can do, that's where we really start to make changes, and that's where
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  we really start to protect the ocean.
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  So that's it for today's episode.
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  Go to speakupforblue.com/patreon to join the community.
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  And I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
• 16:58
  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.