Fisheries management approaches often focus on single species protection by limiting the number of days fishermen can work, the types of fishing gear used, and amount and size of caught fish. Challenging these traditional approaches are ecosystem-based management strategies that would establish large marine reserve "no-take" zones, where extractive activities are banned.
Scientific support of marine reserve ecosystem approaches reached a crescendo in February with the release of a Scientific Consensus Statement from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) supporting the marine reserves strategy.1 Based on a three-year review of literature evaluating marine reserve effectiveness, the statement supports the development of a network of small reserves--linked ecologically and physically through larvae dispersion and ocean currents--that border areas open to fisheries. The NCEAS supports the adoption of a theory of marine reserves as the basis for policy: that these networks of marine reserves, completely protected from exploitation, will ...
