Marine Reserves as Reef Fisheries Management Tools

This book showcases how marine reserves, when implemented and protected effectively, could simultaneously achieve conservation and reef fishery goals.

Marine reserves, permanent spatial closures to fishing, are often viewed as detrimental to fisheries, reducing the area available for fishing and concentrating effort into smaller areas. But what if these reserves could supplement reef fisheries? Drawing on over forty years of research and teaching experience, the author explores the concept of net export—where reserves produce such abundant fish biomass that they spill over into fished areas, partly compensating for the loss of fishing grounds. The book delves into recent advancements in larval tagging and tracking, showcasing studies from the Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea, and beyond, to demonstrate how recruitment subsidy, net export of fish larvae from reserves to fished areas, combined with reductions in fishery effort outside reserves when reserves are implemented, can lead to sustainable reef fisheries alongside conservation. The book argues that with the right balance between conservation and catch, marine reserves can achieve a “win-win” scenario, ensuring both healthy fish populations and sustainable reef fisheries. This book calls for conservation and fisheries to co-ordinate, not confront, in order to simultaneously achieve their objectives.

Written in clear and accessible language, this book is essential reading for marine conservation and fisheries professionals and policymakers, as well as students and scholars of marine science and conservation.