By Neil Farrell ~
A local, commercial fishing, non-profit organization recently awarded grants to support a scientific study in local waters and to help pay for a facilitator at an upcoming conference on community controlled fisheries.
The Morro Bay Community Quota Fund awarded a total of $16,000, said executive director Andrea Lueker. Some $15,000 went to a project entitled, “The Role of Local Marine Protected Areas in Enhancing Nearshore Groundfish Abundance,” submitted by Dr. Jennifer O’Leary of Cal Poly.
The Quota Fund also gave $1,000 to the “2016 National Summit on Community Supported Fisheries,” submitted by Joshua Stoll of LocalCatch.org and to help pay for a facilitator for the summit next spring, which will include participants from the Central Coast, including local fishermen. Time and date for the summit have not been released yet.
Lueker said, the focus of the Summit will be “to define the core principals of Community Supported Fisheries, so that the integrity of the concept is maintained as the movement expands.” The grants were awarded based on a Request for Proposals released last February.
O’Leary’s MPA study will look at the effectiveness of the Marine Protected Areas located offshore from Montaña de Oro State Park that closed some 85 square miles of ocean to fishing.
The study will survey the MPA areas “to assess whether fish abundance and size distribution has changed since the closure,” explained Lueker. Cal Poly students and faculty, along with local fishermen will take part in the study, she added.
Three months ago, another Cal Poly study done in conjunction with the California Sea Grant showed some mixed results for MPAs. The study, which looked at the effectiveness of marine protected areas off the California Coast, suggested that MPAs “may eventually produce more and larger fish than areas open to fishing, but the benefits could take time to accrue,” reads a news release from the study group.
The study looked at the first 7 years of monitoring within four MPAs strung between San Francisco and Morro Bay.
“The study found few significant differences between fish populations inside and outside three of the MPAs, which were established in 2007. However, Point Lobos State Marine Reserve, which has been protected since 1973, is flourishing with more and bigger fish than its surrounding areas.” The research was published last March in the journal PLoS One.
“These marine reserves are going to work, but they’re not a short-term solution for commercial fisheries,” said Rick Starr of California Sea Grant and lead study author. O’Leary’s study will specifically focus on the MPAs off our coast.
Controversial from the start, MPAs were designated offshore here in 2007, after a lengthy public process sparked by the State Fish & Game Commission’s declaration that several species were over-fished.
MPAs provide a refuge for marine life where little or no harvesting is allowed. The theory about MPAs is that eventually fish will rebuild their population size and spill over to the surrounding ocean, thus helping to replenish commercial fish stocks.
They’ve been instituted on the East Coast, MPA’s are one tool used by fisheries managers, along with catch limits, size and species restrictions, to manage the ocean’s fish resources.
In essence, the Quota Fund was formed to purchase and keep locally a portion of the groundfish quota (which changes up or down every year). With the Pacific Fisheries Management Council deciding to divvy up the West Coast catch into individual quotas allocated to fishermen, the fear was that large corporate boats would come into small ports like Morro bay, buy up the individual quotas (worth upwards of $250,000 each) and consolidate them. Then fish local waters, take the catch and land it in large ports. Displaced fishermen would then retool their boats and start fishing for something else, placing added pressures to those fisheries.
The Community Quota Fund bought its quota share from The Nature Conservancy, which acquired it years ago when it bought out nearly all the trawlers operating out of Morro Bay and Port San Luis.
With the switch to the quota system, it would have left the local fleet high and dry, with no access to the lucrative fishery.
With just a handful of trawlers still operating here, the Quota Fund has leased parts of its tonnage to fishers from outside the area as well. The deep-water groundfish fishery has traditionally been the backbone of the local industry and when they were first severely restricted in the mid-1990s, it greatly contributed to a steep decline in the overall local industry.
The Quota Fund’s intent is to have fish caught in local waters also be landed in local ports, in essence to keep the docks busy.
For more information on the Community Quota Fund, see the website at: www.morrobaycommunityquotafund.org or on Facebook at: Morro Bay Community Quota Fund.