Who Really Wins When Marine Sanctuaries Are Opened?

0:00 When politicians say they're helping fishermen by opening protected areas to fishing, the first question we should ask is simple. Which fishermen are we benefiting? This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you wanna get stay updated on the ocean every weekday, hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss tomorrow's story. And you're not gonna wanna miss tomorrow's story 'cause we're gonna be talking about pilot whales and noise. It's gonna be really interesting. Now, the Trump administration has announced actions that would reopen previously protected areas, marine sanctuaries, to commercial fishing. And, you know, one of the things when we first see is like, this is awful. You know, we've heard that he wanted to do this before, Trump and the administration wanted to do this before.

0:42 And we know it's awful, and I'm part of a group that does action and does science communication around, like, making sure people know. And one of my good friends that I do a podcast with, Polar Bears in Flip-Flops, Angelo Villagomez, had a great video, and I'll paraphrase what he talked about in this video, but also link to that video on Instagram that I saw it in. He's on TikTok as well with the same video. But essentially, he's looking at, like, they're opening the sanctuaries in the Mariana Trench. They're opening it in Papahānaumokuākea and a lot in the American overseas territories in the Pacific, which is mostly populated by indigenous Pacific Americans. And so what we see here is the fact that, hey, they're gonna roll back these protections to allow fishing to happen. So you would think that they would be able to fish and make some money off of it.

1:24 Which look, opening up to fishing a protected area that was closed to protect fishing, because when we have a marine protected area, to close that, um, you wanna make-- to close that to a, for a marine protected area and allow the fish to recover and then grow in abundance and biomass, so number and size. And then spill over into the outside of those boundaries so that people can fish forever. That's the idea. But when you start to open up the sanctuary, right away we're like, "No, this is not a good idea." The sanctuary was there for a reason. A lot of them were expanded upon for reasons, and good reasons, scientific reasons, and conservation reasons. But then now all of a sudden you're opening it. Not a good idea from the long-term aspect of it. But then also, like, who benefits?

2:06 That's what it really comes down to, 'cause there's a little bit of an interest. Like Angelo starts to talk about in his video that I'll link to that, hey, you know what? Not everybody that you think benefits, benefits. Like the local people, local indigenous people in the Pacific Islands aren't really benefiting because they're opening up to commercial fishing and not necessarily artisanal fishing. And supporters say it's good for American seafood production, but the critics say that it benefits large commercial interests more than small fishing communities or local fishing communities. And today I wanna look beyond the politics because look, we know the politics in the US sucks. like right now from an environmental perspective. I wanna go beyond the politics, and I wanna ask the bigger question. Who should benefit from public ocean resources?

2:48 So let's look at what's essentially happening. The administration moved to allow this commercial fishing in previously protected waters. It includes areas that have restrictions designed to protect ecosystems, like I mentioned, and the supporters argue that regulations are unnecessary in these areas and harm economic opportunities, which a lot of people are just like, "We just wanna fish more, and this is how we're gonna do it." Now, the opponents of this action to remove these protections argue that protection existed for a reason. And to be honest, they were working. There's data to say that there is an increase in fisheries, and that's something that's really important. And I've explained how MPAs work, so we don't have to go into that. We know that this is an important part of ocean conservation.

3:29 We know they work as long as they're in force. But many people hear protected area and assume that no one can enter. Most marine protected areas have very different levels of protection. Some will allow fishing, depending. Some will allow recreational fishing, local fishing. Some will have, like, restrict, like, specific gear, and some prohibit extraction entirely. A proper MPA, marine protected area, will prohibit any kind of extraction, whether it's for fisheries resources, whether it's for mining. Sometimes they don't even allow scientific discovery or studies to happen, which sometimes it's important. But I want you to think of a protected area as a savings account. You leave money untouched today, so there's money available tomorrow, and it'll grow.

4:10 Slowly, but it'll grow. And a lot of the times, when you leave that money in, you realize it grows a lot more than you think and faster than you think, as long as you don't touch that money. Well, the same idea applies for fisheries populations. And I think this is where fisheries closures have worked in the past, especially small and large scale. We've seen them actually work. We've seen them grow. We've seen the fish numbers grow. We've seen the fish biomass grow. And then they spill over. It takes some time, but these protected areas, these sanctuaries… Papahānaumokuākea has been a sanctuary for quite a long time, over a decade now. And so we're seeing changes happen to the system. We're allowing that system to recover. And sometimes, you know, when you sacrifice the short-term economic goals, you get long-term sustainability.

4:55 And that's what really is the patience that's required. That's what it really comes down to. But the real debate isn't whether fishing is good or bad. It's about who benefits when protections are removed. Because let's be honest, like, unfortunately, with this administration, there are certain people who benefit. The people who speak or have access to the administration and want to exploit natural resources, they tend to win out. Commercial fishing is not just one thing, it's everything. There are small scale fishers, and there are indigenous fisheries. There are large industrial operations. Like, there's a lot of different things like, scales and different types of fishing. And often the benefits are distributed unevenly. 'Cause I want you to think about, like, indigenous fisheries or even small scale fisheries.

5:38 These are fishers that go out, and they take what they can have. They can sell them off, or they can give to their communities. Or they can sell to their communities or barter or trade. And they do it sustainably, so they can fish again tomorrow and tomorrow and the next generation, the next generation, next generation. Commercial fishing is a little bit different. It's looking for money, and it has a lot more capacity to hold fish. Oftentimes or sometimes they're not on the right side of the law. But they're there to grab as many fish as they can. And sustainability, they look at the numbers. They don't look at the communities that are affected. They don't look in indigenous communities. They don't look at local communities, non-indigenous communities, and they don't really care about what's happening locally. They care about how much money hits their bottom line, how much profit can they make off these fish?

6:19 And so when it's commercial fishing, you see some major, like, trawlers. You'll see some major, like, massive fish that can hold just as many fish as a small town or even a big city. And so that could be quite dangerous when we're looking at sustainability. But I want to ask you this, like, when you hear the word fisherman or fisher, who do you picture. ' Cause that's, something that I would love to know. Do you kinda see, like, small boats leaving coastal harbor? Do you kinda picture, like, family-run operations? Or do you, like, see these massive, massive ships, like industrial fleets with corporate ownership? Or even sometimes ownership where you just don't know who owns cause the paperwork is so crazy. Usually that's illegal fishing.

6:59 I've seen all of them. And I think what we picture as the fisher, and I don't like saying fisherman just because it's gender bias, but, like, fisher. We picture somebody, sometimes, like, for me, I picture, like, a small town fisher, right? A local fisher who knows the area very well. People that I've gone on boats with to do sampling with because they're interested in what's happening to the fish that have… And they know more and they tell us a lot of what's been going on for years. That's the fisher that I predict, like, that I picture. You know, family-run operations, that kinda stuff. I don't picture the industrial fleet. I don't picture, like, corporate ownership and corporate fleets, 'cause I don't like that. I want the fisher to win. I want the local fisher to win.

7:42 'Cause they tend not to do illegal fishing. They tend not to take everything they can. They tend to want to fish forever, and they want to take care of their ocean. And I think depending on how you see it and depending where you come from is really how you look at fishing overall. And I think, like, opening up the sanctuary I think is a bad thing. Overall, I think it's a bad thing. But I think opening up the sanctuary for industrial fishing and not other small town fishing, small scale fishing, I think is a huge mistake. When you go back to these fishers, when you talk about how public messaging often focuses on local fishers. But the largest economic benefits can go elsewhere. I heard this at a conference I was at this week, and somebody said, "Hey, if you ever see a fisher get interviewed, it's usually the fisher who may not look the best.

8:22 May not look clean cut. May look a little dirty, just coming in from fishing. May not have all their teeth. They may not look the greatest. They may look like, oh, this is what we picture a fisher." And the media does that oftentimes, more times than not. But they also get a local fisher, whether it's a conflict or whether it's something that's a benefit or they're doing something really cool. They'll get a local fisher. They rarely interview the fleets, the industrial fleets, and those corporate heads. You rarely see that. There's kind of behind a wall. And I think that's like It's sad in a way because that's what we picture, and so maybe we don't see fishing as bad if we're picturing the local fisher because you want them to win. It's like an underdog. You want the underdog to win. But the thing is, is like these industrial fleets come in, they come around local areas, they grab all their fish, they leave.

9:08 And the ocean resources are like, they're public resources. I feel like when you look at that, you're like, who gets access? Who makes the money? Who bears the risk? Who bears the consequences if the stocks decline? If a commercial fishing fleet comes in and takes a lot of the fish and there's nothing left or very little left for the local population, who really wins in that area? Obviously, the ocean's not winning, but also the local community's not winning who's taken care of that coastal area for a long time. This is where I feel like life is unfair. Obviously the news of opening up the sanctuary is not good news. It may not affect most people who are not really thinking of the ocean on a regular basis. They're just like, "Oh, that opens. They'll probably close it later on. They'll probably open it up." Who knows what they're thinking.

9:51 Those are the people I don't usually talk to on this show because they're not really thinking, they don't usually seek out something about how to protect the ocean. But this is something that's really important. I want , the local fisher to be able to fish sustainably 'cause they take care of the area. I want the indigenous fisher to win because they take care of the ocean. They take care of their coastline. And I think that's really important. The one thing I've learned covering fisheries issues is that these debates are rarely simple, and it's unfortunately conservation versus fishing. And it could be both, it really can be both. But I think it really depends. 'Cause like communities depend on the fishing, there's an importance on that healthy ecosystem. And then like balancing economic needs with conservation goals is really important.

10:34 And I think that's something that's really good, 'cause like a fish that's harvested today cannot reproduce tomorrow. We have to know that. So making sure you catch specific types of fish, specific genders of fish, non, like egg-carrying fish and so forth. And that's why fisheries management is always balancing like present benefits against future opportunities. But unfortunately, when politics are involved, it often says who's lobbying the government more? That's the result that happens. And I think that's a really, really big problem. And it's a problem that a lot of fisheries communities get because they can't communicate effectively or properly or get access to the right people on a daily basis. And I think that's really important. And communication is so important in these ocean projects, whether it's a fisheries community, whether it's an indigenous community, whether it's a local community that's trying to stand up and try to get baseline data, try to understand their area, try to put like a scientific methodology to understanding the health of their ecosystem.

11:32 That communication and the projects that need to go in require some help, require collaborators, and that's why they sponsor this show, Pisces Ocean, who I work for, piscesoceans.ca. We are here to help your ocean project. If you have an ocean project and you want that extra help, you may not have the capacity. We have that extra resource. We can provide that extra resource from project management to strategy to communications. We can do it all. We can help you, and we wanna help you 'cause ocean impact is really important. The impact that local communities have on the ocean is extremely important. Sometimes they don't have the capacity or the money to have that capacity to get there. But proposals and now grants are really focusing in on local communities and local projects, and we wanna help that local project.

12:13 So go to piscesoceans.ca. I'll put the link in the show notes, and you'll be able to have access to that. So let's look at what's happening next. For this, the rollback of the marine sanctuary protections, we're probably seeing conservation groups that are likely to challenge this decision, not only in the press, not only communication-wise, but probably in the courts. I know of some organizations that are already in court with the administration. And let's be honest, a lot of these things that the Trump administration has announced have been won from the environmental perspective in the court. So that could happen as well, and it is likely gonna go to court. The fishing industry groups will probably support greater access, because that's what they want. And scientists will continue monitoring fish populations and ecosystem impact.

12:54 Angelo has mentioned this on the Two Polar Bears in Flip-flops Podcast because he said, "Look, this is an opportunity for us to gather data, to see how good the situation is or how healthy these marine sanctuaries are after being closed down for so long, and then the impacts of reopening it and fishing to be able to see what the impacts are, whether it be negative, positive, like mild. We'll see what happens." So I think this is something that's really important. And then of course, like the midterms coming up, it's gonna be really important to vote. If you're an American and you want these marine sanctuaries to stay intact, you're gonna wanna vote opposite of what this administration is, so that you can stop this administration from doing all these rollbacks for environmental regulations. Because future administrations can actually alter protections again.

13:36 So if you have the Congress and you have the Senate that are looking out for not only economic development but also environmental protections, which they're not mutually exclusive, they can be together, that's gonna be a really important thing in the future. So don't knock these, , this is a very important election from an environmental perspective coming up in the US. Now, we don't know what's gonna happen. Whether this is gonna go through, whether it's not gonna go through. But speaking up and voting is going to be something that's really gonna be important. So that's gonna be something that we're gonna have to look out for, in the long run. And to be honest, that's like ultimately what this story is about. It's not about politics. It's not even about fishing in a way. It's about how we manage something that belongs to all of us.

14:16 This is an ocean that belongs to really the indigenous people and the Pacific Islanders. It's really about how we manage this, and how we look at who is being impacted the most, especially in these local areas. I think it's really interesting. The debate over protected area waters isn't really about whether people should fish. It's about whether short-term benefits today are worth the potential cost tomorrow. That's really what we're talking about here. Cause as I said last Friday, when you close down a marine protected area, it normally works. If you do it properly, enforce it properly, it's not a paper park, it usually works. So it's a matter of like, what do we wanna do in the future? What do we want our oceans to look like in the future? How do we want our people to benefit in the future?

14:58 Because once a fish population declines, rebuilding it can take years, decades, or even sometimes longer. Like the cod population in the North Atlantic has not recovered fully or even close to what it was in the past. And now we're opening up the cod populations for industrial fishing way too soon. And it's a political decision that is probably influenced by lobbying. So again, who wins in that matter? It's not the local fisheries. It's not the local fishing communities. It's the industrial fleet. And that's why decisions about public ocean resources really matter. I think it really does So anyway, we're gonna be talking about this in the future. We'll be following this story. I think it's really important.

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