Comparing the Performance of Four Very Large Marine Protected Areas with Different Levels of Protection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Evaluation Summary 

Dear Editor/Authors, please see below my review on the paper by Relano et al.

“Comparing the performance of four very large marine protected 2 areas with different levels of protection”.  

 

Firstly, I would like to congratulate the authors for working on a timely and v. interesting topic supporting sustainable development and conservation of marine ecosystems and their resources. It is obvious that the authors have worked with extensive data sets (both spatially and temporally) and this is much appreciated. I am afraid, however, that the manuscript suffers from many weaknesses. The major one is that the manuscript looks as a rushed and messy approach (mainly in the structure of the text) where the authors have not though very carefully in which section each type of information should be included. For example, there are a lot of cases where information that should be in the “Discussion” are now in “Results” or elsewhere. The “Introduction” also suffers from the lack of a clear structure which would highlight the rationale of the study and especially the main aims and objectives of the work – these have to be stated clearly. Some of the images are of low visual quality (see detailed comments) and they lack key features (e.g., a bar explaining fishing intensity). I have also some rather major considerations about the robustness and validity of the questionnaire. In overall, I think this is an interesting topic/study but a huge proportion of its potential has been wasted due to the rushed/messy approach I described above (see my detailed comments below). For this reason, I think the most fair decision would be to have a major overhaul/revision of the whole manuscript so all the major issues will be addressed.  

 

Abstract

The abstract needs to be rewritten so that help the reader get a better grasp. Before staring presenting the results/making comparisons with other areas the authors should have given a better and clearer description of how they have designed their surveys. For example, they should mention clearly the 4 marine protected areas they studied and why they chose to work with these. Then they should mention they key types of data analyzed. Currently, things in the abstract are rather mixed and a bit confusing.  

Line 10: Why is the word ‘reconstructed’ placed in “…”?

Lines 10-11: ‘Sea Around Us’ should be followed by the word “project” or “programme” or something similar.

Line 18-19: Please quantify your major finding about declines in mean trophic levels for fish/invertebrates.

Line 19: The authors need to mention earlier in the abstract that they used questionnaires and satellite data in their work – these are important points.

 

Introduction

Line 33: Mention fully IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and then you can use the abbreviation throughout the manuscript.

Line 37: Here you could mention a brief statement that these benefits may also spread outside the MPA (i.e. fish spilled over in surrounding areas).

Line 45: You need to introduce (at least briefly) the concept of LSMPA as everyone out there is not familiar with it. Explain briefly main benefits and possible criticism. (Do not forget also to explain LSMPA in full and use abbreviation after that across the manuscript).

Line 44-53. Please mention here (briefly) any major differences in the environmental settings (e.g., water masses, atmospheric variability, physical oceanography, food quantity/quality) that may have also an effect on the performance/status of ecosystem components and resources. Do not focus solely on human impacts.

Lines 48-49: I assume that multiuse will not be identical in these two areas so please provide some brief information (e.g., fishing, tourism in MPA A while fishing, tourism, shipping in MPA B).

Figure 1: Please improve the size and the clarity – important features cannot be seen. Long- and latitude info is missing.

Lines 57-61: Refs are totally absent here. The concept of performance is introduced abruptly.

Lines 67-69. I am not sure that you need this information (at least here). If still relevant, use them in “Discussion”.

Lines 67-80: I feel that there is too much (technical) detail here for the “Introduction”. Bids need to be moved to “Materials and Methods”.

Line 83: Is “Pitcairn Islands” one of the MPAs that you examine? Please explain so you will help the read to follow the thread.

Line 89: “…to assess satellite monitoring…”. This does not sound quite right. Do you mean “…to assess the status of MPA components/human activities using satellites…”

Lines 83 – 123. In overall, I do not think that you need all these historic data in the “Introduction” It is a bit difficult for the readers to keep track/get a grasp of all this information. I would place them in the “Discussion” of the manuscript. The main thing that you need to do in the “Introduction” to explain to the readers why you are doing what you are doing – the high level/amount of details in the Intro is an obstacle to achieve this objective. 

 

Materials and Methods

Lines 126 – 128: This is a key point and should be moved earlier in the text.

Table 1: This Table is very helpful.

Line 128: When people read about the “response variable” they usually expect

Lines 130-138: Please provide some information about the species that are fished. In the case that this list is too long you can mention in these lines the major species and in an Appendix the full list.

Lines 144-146. Please mention here very briefly how this trophic index is calculated. E.g. is it based on stable isotopes data, stomach content analysis, both, other method?

Lines 141-151. Please clarify the type of fisheries you have examined (e.g. “bottom trawling”) and its environmental impact.

Lines 158-161: What about the opinion of the fishermen about the effectiveness of the MPAs? This looks like a rather important gap in your questionnaire.

Line 160: Please specify briefly the field of expertise of the scientists you contacted e.g. fisheries biologists, benthic ecologists etc.

Lines 161-164. The statement here looks odd and needs careful thought from the authors. If I got it correctly the questionnaire asked NGOs, journalists etc about the level of fishing in the MPA. But how is it possible that journalist (or even other groups) are aware whether a Marine Protected Area has been fished? If my understanding is correct the major group that would be aware about level of fishing should be those involved in the monitoring of the MPA.

Lines 157-165. It is not clear how this piece of work fits into the rest of the study. The authors need to make that clear earlier in the text so there is a sequence that readers can follow more efficiently.

Lines 168-173. These lines should not be part of your results. They should fit better in Intro/Discussion.

Line 174. Please clarify where you refer to by “foreign” catches.

Lines 179-180. This should go in your “Discussion”.

Lines 198-200. I think these lines should fit better in your “Discussion”.

Lines 203-204. This statement here should be in your “Discussion”.

Lines 208-211. It is now clear what statistical analysis that the authors followed to reach to a statement that “the establishment of EEZs does not coincide with any change in total catch (Figure 2). Instead, the catch increases over time, independently of EEZ establishment”. As it stands now it looks like an arbitrary statement. This is a key point and authors need to think on that more carefully.

Line 213: I think statements like “…minimal impact…” should be accompanied by relevant quantification i.e., please provide some quantitative information.

Line 217: Same comment as above. I acknowledge that there is a reference to Figure 3 but Figure 3 also suffers from lack of basic information (e.g. bar highlighting colour intensity for fishing effort).

Line 232: This finding here reinforces my comment above about the obviously limited robustness of your questionnaire.

Line 243-251:All these qualitative information about the type of fisheries should have been presented in the Materials and Methods section. In overall the authors need to be much more careful in the type of information that they include in each section. The current status of the manuscript is messy.  

Line 288-304: It seems that you provide information on trophic levels only for 2 areas (New Caledonia and Galapagos)– what about the rest areas?

Line 299-303: And again, information/statements that belong to another section  - this should be in “Discussion”.

Table 5: This is along Table and rather unnecessary for the main text – it should be in Appendix.

Lines 345-363: This is not a very good way to start your Discussion. You should give first a short summary of your major findings and these would help you to build your “Discussion” around the main axes. My understanding is that one of your major questions in your work was the effectiveness of MPAs. So what don’t you highlight firstly your major findings around that?

Line 371: MPAs are usually called “Area-based management tools”.

Lines 372-373. Here you should mention briefly that networks of MPAs need to be ecologically coherent.

Lines 374-377: These lines should be moved up higher in the start of the “Discussion”.

Lines 388-390: I think you need to rework the ending of tout Discussion/Conclusions. As it stands currently is not quite strong.  

Further issues that you could consider in your “Discussion”.

Connectivity of species populations among areas and how this connectivity is damaged by overfishing.  

Role of natural variability e.g., effects of atmospheric/oceanographic variability on natural resources (e.g. on fish larvae and adults). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper compares the effectiveness of four large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs - the North-western Hawaiian Islands (a US territory); the Pitcairn Islands (a UK territory); New Caledonia (a French territory); and the Galapagos Islands (an Ecuador territory). The paper is focused on an important topic, and is based on sound research, but because of the way in which the argument is presented I found it difficult to navigate. The main problem for me is the ambiguous ways in which the authors compare and contrast the effects of designating EEZs and designating LSMPAs in the four cases.  

First, the first five sentences in the Abstract confuse me:

“the declaration of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1983 by the U.S.A. and its protection by the U.S. Coast Guard had a much bigger impact on catches around the North western Hawaiian Islands than the subsequent creation of a LSMPA. This is similar to Pitcairn Islands, a UK territory. Trends differed sharply in New Caledonia, whose entire EEZ was declared an MPA by France in 2014. However, local fisheries continue to expand in New Caledonia, as they do in the Galapagos Islands, the 4th territory that we examined. Our results also demonstrate that in multi-zone LSMPAs (New Caledonia and Galapagos), continued local fishing induces a ‘fishing down’ effect wherein the mean trophic level of the fish and invertebrate species caught tends to decline”.

The first sentence says the EEZ was more effective than the LSMPA in protecting stocks in the Hawaiian Islands, and the second sentence says this is also true of the Pitcairn Islands. The third sentence says this is not true in New Caledonia, and the fourth sentence says it is not true of the Galapagos Islands. So are we to assume that in New Caledonia and Galapagos, their LSMPAs were more effective than their EEZs in protecting stocks? Such an assumption seems contradicted by the fifth sentence which says that in New Caledonia and Galapagos the LSMPAs allowed local fishing which caused a decline in stocks.

The final sentence in the Abstract states:

“EEZs are a tool for coastal countries to protect their marine biodiversity and that allowing fishing in an MPA, while politically convenient, may result in ‘paper parks’ within which fishing can cause the same deleterious effects as in wholly unprotected areas”.

Are the authors saying that EEZs are a better protection for stocks than are LSMPAs in general, or only than multi-use zone LSMPAs?

[NB I suggest the authors change the order of these four LSMPAS in the Abstract to conform to the order in which they appear in the rest of the paper – i.e. Galapagos third rather than fourth].

On lines 62-65, the authors say the comparison is between four LSMPAs, two of which are no-take zones (NTZs) and the other two are multi-use zones (MUZs):

“The no-take LSMPAs that are evaluated here are the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (jointly with its 2016 expansion) in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (USA) and the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve (UK). The multi-use LSMPAs are the Galapagos Marine Reserve (Ecuador) and the Coral Sea Natural Park of New Caledonia (France)”.

However, on lines 126-127, the authors say:

“We selected four well-documented LSMPAs in the Pacific to compare the effect of a well-enforced EEZ to the declaration of no-take or multi-use MPAs”

This implies the comparison is not between four LSMPAs but between one EEZ (Hawaii), one NTZ LSMPA, and two MUZ LSMPAs.

On lines 174-175, the authors refer to the EEZs of three of the four cases:

“Foreign catches declined radically following EEZ implementation in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Pitcairn and New Caledonia” 

This implies that the comparison is between three EEZs and one LSMPA.

On lines 180-188, the authors describe the sharp decline in catches in Hawaii (91%) and Pitcairn (94%) after their designation as EEZs.

“In the Northwest Islands of Hawaii and Pitcairn Islands, the annual catch gradually grew since the 1950s until it dropped by 91 % in 1983 in Hawaii and by 94 % in 1996 in the Pitcairn Islands. The decade-long increases in catch since the 1950s were the result of the global buildup and expansion of fishing effort throughout the world’s oceans, particularly the Pacific [60,61]. The rapid decrease of the total catch in both sites coincided with EEZ establishment and was indeed one of its results (Figure 2A and 2B). In these countries, before the EEZ establishment, many different fishing entities contributed to the overall catch. However, since the EEZ establishment, the coastal countries’ (or territories’) fleets dominate”. 

However, these percentages still leave some fishing in both cases, so why do the authors describe Hawaii and  Pitcairn as NTZs?

On lines 207-210, the authors compare EEZ designations in the four cases, saying that EEZ designation had no effect in reducing catches in New Caledonia and Galapagos (indeed, catches increased), unlike in Hawaii and Pitcairn where it dramatically reduced catches.  

“Contrary to what we see in the Pitcairn and Hawaiian Islands, in the cases of the Galapagos Islands and New Caledonia, the establishment of EEZs does not coincide with any change in total catch (Figure 2). Instead, the catch increases over time, independently of EEZ establishment”.

So if EEZ designation is not the crucial factor, I presume the crucial factor is the distinction between NTZ and MUZ? In other words, the reason why the LSMPAs in Hawaii and Pitcairn have seen drastic reductions in catches is because they were designated as NTZs, not because they were designated as EEZs. Likewise, the reason why the LSMPAs in New Caledonia and Galapagos have seen no reductions in catches (indeed they have seen increases in catches) is because they were designated as MUZs, not because they were not designated as EEZs.   

On lines 373-377, the authors say that the dramatic decline in catches in Hawaii and Pitcairn were due to EEZ designation which occurred before LSMPA designation:

“we showed that well-enforced EEZs allow for effective governance and protection of marine resources [102]. In Pitcairn and the Northwest islands of Hawaii, the establishment of EEZs had a strong effect on fisheries, directly and substantially reducing foreign industrial fishing. Therefore, the subsequent impact of the LSMPA establishment on catches was very small in both Northwestern Hawaii and Pitcairn”.

On lines 378-384, the authors say EEZ designation in New Caledonia did not reduce catches because it merely replaced foreign fleets with domestic fleets, and the subsequent designation of LSMPA did not reduce catches because it was a MUZ and permitted the local fleet to continue fishing hard. It seems Galapagos exhibits the same situation.

“In New Caledonia, the EEZ implementation resulted in foreign fleets being replaced by a local industrial fleet, as was also the case in Canada [103]. The subsequent designation of the entire EEZ as a huge MPA, the ‘Parc Naturel de la Mer de Corail’ has no effect whatsoever on catches, because it is in effect a ‘paper park’, involving no restriction on the operation and growth of the local industrial fishery. Fortunately, the local demand for livelihoods and fish, and the export potential are limited, thus for the time being, preventing fishing pressure to grow as it does within Galapagos”.

These two passages suggest that whether or not EEZ designations or LSMPA designations reduce catches depends on how the countries responsible for those designations interpret them. In the case of Hawaii and Pitcairn, the countries responsible for designating the EEZs did not allow domestic industrial fleets to replace foreign industrial fleets in over-exploiting the stocks within the 200-mile exclusion zone, and their subsequent LSMPA designations reflected this self-restraint in establishing them as NTZs. In the case of New Caledonia and Galapagos, the countries responsible for designating the EEZs did allow domestic industrial fleets to replace foreign industrial fleets in over-exploiting the stocks within the EEZ, and their subsequent LSMPA designations reflected this liberal attitude in designating them as MUZs. So the crucial factor is not EEZ versus LSMPA but the attitudes of the countries towards both EEZs and LSMPAs.

In my view, the authors need to clarify their core argument before their paper can be recommended for publication.    

Author Response

Please the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to thank the Authors for their work to address the comments - it is much appreciated. I still feel though that the Abstract could be written in a (much) better way (see my guidance in the first round of comments). I also feel that the Figure 3 (and 5) could be benefited by an appropriate scale bar (and not just by adding text to the caption as the authors did now). I will leave these two points to the Editor for final decision. In overall I support the acceptance of the manuscript. Thanks very much.