Project nº SSP8-006539 EMPAFISH European Marine Protected Areas as tools for Fisheries management and conservation Specific Programme “Integrating and strengthening the ERA” (6th Framework Programme), under the activity “Scientific Support to Policies” and the research priority for “Modernisation and sustainability of fisheries, including aquaculture-based production system”. Final Activity Report Deliverable reference number: 34 Due date of deliverable: February 2008 Actual submission date: April 2008, revised October 2008 Start date of project: 1st March 2005 Duration: 36 months Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: University of Murcia (Spain) Revision: Final Contents: 1 Project execution ………………………………………………………………………… 1 1.1 Overall objectives and project structure …………………… 1 1.2 Overview of activities …………………………………………………… 1 1.3 Case studies …………………………………………………………………… 8 1.4 Major achievements ………………………………………………………. 10 1.5 Conclusions and perspectives ………………………………………. 21 1.6 EMPAFISH in brief ………………………………………………………… 23 2 Dissemination of results ……………………………………………………………… 25 Final Activity Report 1 Project execution 1.1 Overall objectives and project structure The EC project EMPAFISH (“European Marine Protected Areas as tools for FISHeries management and conservation”, contract nº SSP8-2004-006539) was a 3-year research programme (2005-2008) aim at assisting the EU in the process of evaluating, ameliorating and implementing the use of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as tools for the conservation of marine resources and the protection of marine biodiversity. The general objectives of EMPAFISH were: (i) to investigate the potential of different regimes of MPAs in Europe as measures to protect sensitive and endangered species, habitats and ecosystems from the effects of fishing; (ii) to develop quantitative methods to assess the effects of marine protected areas; (iii) to provide EU with a set of integrated measures and policy proposals for the implementation of MPAs as fisheries and ecosystem management tools. Overall, 14 laboratories from 6 EU countries participated in EMPAFISH (see Section 1.6 below), bringing together a vast expertise on marine ecology, fisheries and ecological modelling, and coastal area management particularly relating to MPAs. The EMPAFISH project represents a real progress in the management of MPAs in the European context as the results of the project have permitted: o The selection and validation of appropriate tools (indicators, protocols and procedures) to evaluate the performance of MPAs (under different management regimes). o The application and enhancement of eco-modelling tools, facilitating their usefulness and applicability for management purposes. o The provision of guidelines for the definition of objectives, design, location, management and monitoring of European MPAs, based on a multidisciplinary scheme, using the best empirical information available to date. o The facilitation of the incorporation of stakeholders within the management of coastal zones. 1.2 Overview of activities The project was organised in 7 workpackages (hereafter referred as WPs) (Fig. 1): WP0.- Coordination of overall project; WP1.- Ecological effects of MPAs; 1 Final Activity Report WP2.- Fishery effects of MPAs; WP3.- Socio-economic impacts of MPAs; WP4.- Providing and evaluating impact indicators of MPAs; WP5.- Bio-economic modelling of MPA effects; WP6.- Management tools – Policy proposals. Commission Cluster of projects Participation of stakeholders of Steering committee WP0 MPAs UMU (Coordinator + WP leaders) Coordination WP1 WP2 WP3 Ecological effects Fisheries effects Socio-Economic effects Reference User Group CNRS IMAR UBO (RUG) oriented - 2nd yr WP4 WP5 ICM Indicators – Bio-economic modelling UA CASE STUDIES Quantitative assessment methods take / Partial Species European - Congress No 3rd yr WP6 PML Management tools - Policies proposal Figure 1. Diagram showing the temporal organisation of the EMPAFISH project by WPs, the flow chart linking WPs amongst them and the participant name in charge of co- ordinating each WP (see in page 23 the correspondence between acronyms and names of institutions involved). WP0 was devoted to orientating and completing the general scientific, administrative and financial works and reports to EC, to ensure the adequate level of co-ordination and communication among WPs (and other participants in the project). A network was launched at two levels: restricted (among participants) and extensive (i.e. including stakeholders), using internet resources (web page1, e-mailing list, etc.), and meetings at different stages (plenary meetings, thematic congress, individual exchanges, etc.). A Steering Committee was organised to assess the progress of the project. Also, an Editorial Committee was established with the aim to organising and providing guidelines to the published deliverables2, both at the scientific (research 1 http://www.um.es/empafish 2 http://www.um.es/empafish, Publications, and Progress and results 2 Final Activity Report articles, reviews, etc.) and dissemination (booklets, guides, protocols, DSS, etc.) levels. WP0 facilitated the co-ordination with other EC projects addressing the ecological and social impacts of fisheries management in EU, through the launching and participation in Clustering initiatives. Finally, this WP provided with a set of documents aiming at synthesising the main results of the project3. Importantly, within this WP, the European Symposium on Marine Protected Areas, held in Murcia (Spain) from 25th to 28th September 2007, was co-organised by EC research projects EMPAFISH and PROTECT. The main goal of the meeting was to integrate ecological, economic and social aspects for the selection, design, and management of marine protected areas, facilitating discussion and exchange amongst stakeholders, scientists, lawyers, and managers4,5. WP1 was committed to list, explore, and evaluate the ecological effects of MPAs using data issued from the 20 EMPAFISH selected case studies (see below). These effects were firstly reviewed case by case, with the contribution of the partners working on each of the case studies6; complementary, this review included a compilation of the physical, ecological, socio-economical and administrative features of the case studies. Based on the above information, a literature review has been done, in order to assess and synthesise the generality and gaps of research done up to now in the Mediterranean and Macaronesian MPAs7. In a second step, after assembling all ecological data for each case study under a common format to allow statistical comparisons, a meta-analytical approach was used to compare fully-protected vs. unprotected situations against several potential sources of variation (time since protection, size of the marine reserve and of the buffer zone, and distance to the nearest 3 García-Charton J.A., Pérez-Ruzafa A., Marcos C. & Salas F. (Coord.) (2008). Towards an EU strategy for the management and networking of Atlanto-Mediterranean MPAs. EMPAFISH Project, Deliverable nº 26. (available at http://www.um.es/empafish, Progress and results). 4 For more information, see http://www.mpasymposium2007.eu 5 García-Charton J.A., Marcos C., Salas F. & Pérez-Ruzafa A. (2008). MPAs in Europe: challenges and opportunities. MPA News 9: 3. 6 Planes S., García-Charton J.A., Marcos C. & Pérez-Ruzafa A. (2008). Ecological effects of Atlanto-Mediterranean marine protected areas in the European Union. EMPAFISH Project, Booklet nº 1. Editum, Murcia. 158 pp. (available at http://www.um.es/empafish, Publications). 7 García-Charton J.A., Pérez-Ruzafa A., Marcos C., Claudet J., Badalamenti F., Benedetti-Cecchi L., Falcón J.M., Milazzo M., Schembri P.J., Stobart B., Vandeperre F., Brito A., Bulleri F., Chemello R., Dimech M., Domenici P., Guala I., Le Diréach L. & Planes S. (in press). Effectiveness of European Atlanto-Mediterranean MPAs: do they accomplish the expected effects on populations, communities and ecosystems? Journal for Nature Conservation. 3 Final Activity Report MPA, amongst other)8,9,10. Spill-over and effectiveness of the MPAs to recover population density under different biological characteristics of the species and fishing mortality out of the reserve boundary has been analyzed using modelling approach11. The objective of WP2 was to explore more fully the fisheries in operation in the vicinity of the selected EMPAFISH case study sites, and to use fisheries data to determine the general effects that this type of marine conservation might have on local fisheries. The first goal of WP2 was to characterise fishery regimes in each area according to the main fishing gears, fished areas, seasonality, target species, and fishing regulations. In addition, the objectives of the MPAs with regard to fisheries were described and illustrated12,13. Pre- existing fisheries data were gathered from a variety of sources including: landings records, biological sampling programs, fishing fleet enquiries, on- board sampling, and logbooks. The information assembled focussed on commercially important individual species and specific gears, as well as on aggregated catch from all gears. Working with catch per unit effort (CPUE), catches for regions around each protected area were assessed using meta- analysis. Various parameters were considered as potential determinants of the 8 Claudet J., Planes S., García-Charton J.A., Sánchez-Meca J., Benedetti-Cecchi L., Domenici P., Badalamenti F., Bayle-Sempere J., Brito A., Bulleri F., Culioli