Waitabu Marine Park Blog

Recognize anybody? Ten BAD Boys and Girls and six Gentlemen from Waitabu Marine Park have spent three days learning about Reef Ecology and Fiji's Fisheries Law, courtesy of the Coral Reef Alliance who fronted the costs for the Taveuni gang and SRMR and BAD who organized & financed the whole gig. Our thanks go to the Department of Fisheries , foremost to the Director, Commander Naqali for having accepted to run the course and for having sent us a team of brilliant lecturers. All the participants have assured me that they have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learned heaps in the process! The result? 16 brand new Fish Wardens ! These are sort of "Park Rangers" who are given full authority by the Government to enforce the Fisheries Law. They can arrest poachers, inspect cargo, even confiscate catches and boats - great for monitoring and enforcing the fishing ban in our respective Marine Protected Areas! Fisheries tell me that they would welcome more such coop...

Marine reserves are widely used throughout the world to prevent overfishing and conserve biodiversity, but uncertainties remain about their optimal design. The effects of marine reserves are heterogenous. Despite theoretical findings, empirical studies have previously found no effect of size on the effectiveness of marine reserves in protecting commercial fish stocks. Using 58 datasets from 19 European marine reserves, we show that reserve size and age fo matter. Increasing the size of the no-take zone increases the density of commercial fishes within the reserve compared with outside; whereas teh size of the buffer zone has the opposite effect. Moreover, positive effects of marine reserve on commercial fish species and species richness are link to the time elapsed since the establishment of the protection scheme. The reserve size-dependency of the respinse to protection has strong implications for the spatial management of coastal areas because marine reserves are used for spatial zon...