5 Will Get U 25: The MLPAi and the California Current EBM Atlantis Ecosystem Model

"I will now proceed to entangle the entire area" David Crosby

Well, I myself for my part, will attempt here to show a condition that is in writing, that may provide the elusive answer that has never been addressed adequately by the MLPAi throughout it's Commission hearings, BRTF meetings, and the SAT.

California Current Ecosystem-Based Management (CCEBM) initiative:
Advancing the Science for Ecosystem-Based Management on the U.S. West Coast
January 30-31 2008, Santa Cruz CA

The Goal of EBM:
The goal of EBM is to ensure the long-term provision of the ecosystem services that humans want and need. Furthermore, it is now widely recognized that the continued delivery of these services depends on healthy, productive and resilient ecosystems.

“As a result, a focus on ecosystem services rather than on EBM per se allows us to manage in a way that optimizes the delivery of multiple services, not just within a single sector, but across sectors. It also reveals a need to develop new approaches and improve existing methods for mapping and valuing services under different management scenarios, and for evaluating tradeoffs among different services. These tools provide a basis for communicating the value of ecosystem services so that management can initiate an EBM approach.”

“An Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA), under development by NOAA, is a formal synthesis and quantitative analysis of information about natural and socio-economic factors in relation to specified ecosystem management goals within a defined region. It involves and informs citizens, industry representatives, scientists, resource managers, and policy makers through formal processes and is defined by four key steps: scoping, indicator development, risk assessment, and management strategy evaluation.”

“A method under development by the CCEBM Science Advisory Committee, Science to Inform Ecosystem Service Trade-off Analysis (SIESTA), is an approach for achieving the management strategy evaluation step of the IEA. SIESTA is a means for defining and visualizing the relationship and potential trade-offs among the delivery of key ecosystem services. SIESTA is not a model, but rather a heuristic tool that reveals acceptable versus poor management options and opportunities for improving our ability to both protect and procure services from the ecosystem.”

Is focusing on ecosystem services too anthropocentric?

“A focus on ecosystem services suggests an emphasis on the benefits that humans receive from a functioning ecosystem, rather than on the intrinsic importance of the ecosystem or its importance to other species. Some argue this perspective is too anthropocentric and ignores important ecosystem attributes that are difficult to quantify and value. Others assert that ecosystem services are an effective basis for EBM, as this focus acknowledges the connections between human and natural systems, and is useful for conveying these ideas to the general public and that the intrinsic value of an ecosystem can be quantified and incorporated into analysis of ecosystem service tradeoffs.”

“Taken together, these views suggest an inherent challenge of EBM: how to acknowledge and balance the social and ecological components of the ecosystem. This careful balance is not only possible, but essential, and requires that we do not limit our focus on ecosystem services to those with market value.”

“While there are important scientific advances enabling improved marine management, and important scientific limitations that must be addressed with new research agendas, we should not be discussing science in a “vacuum”. There will be a need for a “procedural map” for how to apply science to EBM in the real world.”
http://ims.ucsc.edu/ccebm

What is the 'procedural map' (EBM) within the context of MPA designation by the MLPAi?

On the CCEBM Steering Committee is Margaret Caldwell – Stanford University; also on the BRTF for the North Coast Study Region.

So, how does the Atlantis ecosystem model for the California Current authored by Isaac Kaplan influence the MLPA process and monitoring assessments of MPA's?

Current Applications of US West Coast Atlantis Model are -
1. Testing ecological indicators
Setting federal (Sanctuary and Fishery Council) management in the ecosystem context (including state MPAs)
Evaluating effects of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) In the future, we will use Atlantis to evaluate management strategies within Integrated Ecosystem Assessments.

CCEBM Project 1: Indicators of Fishing Impacts (Kaplan and Levin in press)
For fished species, remove a fixed amount of biomass annually from standing stock.
After 25 years, examine changes in ecosystem structure.

Who gets to "remove" that "fixed amount"? Sounds scientific, and might require a research permit.

The MLPA is not about fishing or fisheries management. It is about Essential Fish Habitat, well actually that's a fisheries management term, but the MLPA is all about habitat.

Tomas DiFiore
Albion Harbor Regional Alliance