Marine Policy 122 (2020) 104224

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Marine Policy
journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/marpol

Full length article

Beyond protection: Fisheries co-benefits of no-take marine reserves

Jono R. Wilson a, b, *, Darcy Bradley b, Kristina Phipps a, Mary G. Gleason a
a
The Nature Conservancy, 99 Pacific Street, Suite 200G, Monterey 93940, CA, USA
b
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106, CA, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Overfishing and other anthropogenic impacts to ocean ecosystems have motivated widespread implementation
Conservation of no-take marine reserves to protect biodiversity and fished resources. Fully protected marine reserves now
Fisheries comprise approximately 2.5% of the ocean and calls for enhanced protections abound. The benefits to marine
Reserve
biodiversity within reserve borders are clear, yet the contributions beyond borders remain the subject of
Reserve network
continued scholarship. In this article, six co-benefits of marine reserves for fisheries are explored. Broadly, the six
Spillover
Fisheries management co-benefits fall within two categories 1) use of reserves as tools to adaptively learn, promote resiliency, and
manage marine resources, especially in the face of a changing climate and 2) use of reserves to provide credit
against uncertainty in management and sustainability criteria. Broader understanding and consideration of the
benefits of marine reserves can further policy discussions and deepen conversations regarding social, ecological,
and economic tradeoffs of implementing marine reserves.

1. Introduction
Ocean ecosystems face an array of threats from climate change,
coastal and offshore development, pollution, and overfishing, among
other stressors [1]. Overfishing in particular is widespread and it is
estimated that between one third [2] to one half [3] of all fisheries are
fished unsustainably. Such declines have spurred widespread support for
adoption of fisheries management policy reforms. Recent findings have
shown that where effective fisheries management reforms have been
implemented, fish stocks show positive signs of recovery [4]. Strong
fisheries management policies that include stock assessments and har­
vest control rules are key to restoring fish stocks and biodiversity in our
ocean.
Implementing effective fisheries management reforms, underpinned
by stock assessments can be a costly and data intensive endeavor.
Bringing such management systems to the thousands of fisheries that
suffer from a lack of data, limited resources, and poor governance is a
significant challenge [5]. As such, there are widespread calls to expand
the implementation of protected areas to stem fisheries declines, sustain
biodiversity, and restore ocean health [1,6,7]. Fully protected marine
reserves – areas of the ocean permanently off-limits to fishing and other
extractive activities (hereafter reserves), have been steadily increasing
in number and area in recent decades and now approach 2.5% of the
ocean (http://www.mpatlas.org/map/mpas/).
The biodiversity benefits within reserve borders are many, and may
include: the maintenance of spatial population structure, protection of
essential fish habitat, increased size, biomass, and species diversity, and
buffering against changes in environmental conditions leading to
enhanced resilience in the face of climate change [7–11]. Biodiversity
benefits outside reserve borders are less clear and may depend on a suite
of factors, including the redistribution of fishing effort following reserve
implementation, the size and spacing of reserves, and the demography of
vulnerable species [1,4,12–14].
Fisheries benefits outside of reserves are difficult to demonstrate and
often take substantial time to accrue. Spillover of larvae and adults to
fisheries, as a result of increased biomass and density of fishes within
reserve boundaries is possible and known to occur [15,16]. However, a
recent review of 57 case studies globally revealed that the empirical
evidence supporting net fishery benefits from protection and subsequent
spillover is limited and context dependent [17]. Potential spillover
benefits outside reserves may be lacking due in part to inappropriate
design of reserves (e.g. size, spacing, habitat representation, ecological
connectivity) to protect adult and juvenile life-stages of targeted fishery
species [12,13]. Ovando et al. [18] showed that enhanced yields and
profits to fishermen may take decades to accrue, especially for slow-
growing and/or mobile species. For sedentary species with low larval
dispersal, marine reserves may even negatively impact both fisheries
and conservation outcomes as a result of increased fishing costs and

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jonowilson@tnc.org (J.R. Wilson).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104224
Received 11 September 2017; Received in revised form 4 September 2020; Accepted 28 September 2020
Available online 12 October 2020
0308-597X/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
J.R. Wilson et al.
redistribution of fishing effort to previously unfished locations [19].
Even when reserves are designed for conservation and fisheries benefits
(e.g [15]), the costs of monitoring and enforcement can be high, and it is
unclear whether similar biodiversity or fisheries benefits could be ob­
tained by placing management resources elsewhere. Furthermore, re­
serves may fail to achieve conservation outcomes for migratory species
and in cases where fishing mortality is already maintained at sustainable
levels.
Given widespread expansion of reserve implementation and the
seemingly significant challenge of identifying associated fisheries ben­
efits through enhanced yields from spillover, it is unsurprising that
reserve implementation is not universally supported, especially by
fishery constituents. Fishers often stand to lose access to fishing grounds
and may view reserves as punitive measures to address a history of
overfishing and habitat destruction [20]. The lack of widespread fishery
support during and subsequent to reserve implementation hampers the
ability for reserves to meet social and conservation objectives [21], and
ultimately the facility to scale their adoption. Consequently, it is worth
exploring whether there are additional fishery benefits of reserves that
are possible and could improve fisheries management outcomes, and
stakeholder acceptance for implementation. This is especially important
in areas where reserves may in fact be easier to enforce than a complex
set of fishery management regulations that include input and output
controls.
Initial work by Hilborn et al. [61] suggested that reserves can play a
role as reference areas to better understand natural systems and guide
management decisions. Over the last decade considerable research has
been directed towards elucidating mechanisms that confer fishery ben­
efits, but an updated perspective on using reserves as tools to provide
benefits beyond protection and enhanced fisheries yields has yet to be
developed. The goal of this paper is to identify and describe uses of re­
serves that confer additional fishery benefits that may improve man­
agement and fisheries outcomes. Specifically, approaches are considered
that fall within two categories 1) use of reserves as tools to adaptively
learn, promote resiliency, and manage marine resources, especially in
the face of a changing climate and 2) use of reserves to provide credit
against uncertainty in management and sustainability criteria. By
exploring these applications of reserves, it may be possible to set realistic
expectations for implementation of reserves and improve the design and
communication of reserves beyond protection and enhanced fisheries
yields.
2. Beyond protection
Proper design and implementation of reserves is a labor-intensive
process requiring interdisciplinary coordination and support from
diverse partners. Many reserves are implemented with explicit objec­
tives to protect ecosystems generally, important species specifically,
and/or to improve fisheries outside the protected areas. The scientific
community has articulated a set of necessary considerations and design
guidelines for achieving desired objectives of marine reserves, which
include (but are not limited to): understanding biological attributes of
the focal species such as ontogenetic movement, the dispersal potential,
the population growth rate, the size of reserves relative to the home
range; physical attributes of the region such as proper siting of reserves
in relation to oceanographic conditions and habitat features; fishery
attributes such as the status of the fishery prior to implementation of
reserves; fisher behavior and fleet dynamics before and after reserve
implementation; and effective leadership and governance, including
capacity for monitoring and enforcement [8,12,13,22–29]. These broad
conditions may be difficult to address in all fisheries contexts yet are
nonetheless important in reserve planning processes, especially where
there are explicit fishery objectives. The intention of this paper is not to
consider whether and how these conditions can be met, but rather to
explore the suite of fisheries benefits beyond biodiversity protection and
enhanced yields that can arise when reserves are effectively designed
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Marine Policy 122 (2020) 104224
and implemented.
In the following sections, we highlight two broad areas in which
reserves can serve to improve decision-making and deliver fisheries
management benefits. These include the use of reserves as adaptive
learning platforms, and the use of reserves as tools for credit and buff­
ering against uncertainty. Within each of these categories we provide
specific examples for how these applications could be applied (Table 1;
Fig. 1).
3. Adaptive learning
Adaptive fisheries management relies on continuous improvements
and refining of management advice [62]. Such systems can be passive or
active depending on whether learning through experimentation is an
explicit goal of the management system. Reserves may offer an oppor­
tunity to improve management systems via both passive and active
learning. The spatial replication of reserve networks and the contrast in
fishing pressure inside and outside of reserves, especially for reserves in
coastal habitats that protect relatively sedentary animals, offers the
ability to glean information, collaborate with local communities in
fisheries research, disentangle the effects of fishing and environmental
perturbations, and more fully integrate ecosystem considerations into
management actions. Three specific opportunities to use reserves to
learn and improve fisheries management are highlighted below.
3.1. Gleaning essential fishery information from reserves to improve
management inputs
Life history information and demographic rates are critical pieces of
information that contribute to an understanding of basic ecological
processes and to an understanding of the impacts of fishing on fish stocks
[30]. Life history information such as somatic growth, reproduction,
weight at length, and population dynamics information including pop­
ulation growth rates, movement, recruitment, and mortality are
considered essential fishery information (EFI) and are critical for fish­
eries scientists and managers to make informed decisions. However, it is
often difficult to collect EFI in fished populations, because the natural
rates are either impacted by the effects of fishing [31], or because pro­
curing samples of individuals beyond a certain size can be difficult in
heavily exploited populations [32,33]. Reserves provide an opportunity
to collect EFI at spatially representative scales. Reserves that protect
relatively sedentary animals may allow populations to approach near
unfished life histories and demographic rates [34], and act as reference
sites that can be used to disentangle fishing effects on life history traits
from natural differences due to environmental variability [35]. By
creating areas that have lower overall mortality, reserves can also
reduce the level of life history evolution that is known to occur under
intense fishing pressure, but that is currently ignored by stock assess­
ments to the long-term peril of fisheries yields [36].
Garrison et al. [37] showed that reserves allow for improved statis­
tical estimation of natural mortality within a conventional biomass-
based stock assessment model. For species that moved between fished
areas and reserves, the authors showed that natural mortality and
movement can simultaneously be estimated with high precision. Kay &
Wilson [38] used a modified form of catch curve analysis to estimate
total mortality, natural mortality, and fishing mortality inside and
outside of reserves at California’s Northern Channel Islands using bio­
logical information and length frequency distributions of spiny lobster
(Panulirus interruptus) obtained from a collaborative catch and release
program. Results revealed extreme variability in demographic rates and
fishing mortality across short distances. Conclusions from this work
stressed the importance of obtaining samples as close to the center of the
reserve as possible, depending on the interaction between home range
size and reserve size. Such results could be used to populate assessment
models using spatially explicit approaches.
The design of reserves and monitoring programs may benefit from
J.R. Wilson et al. Marine Policy 122 (2020) 104224

Table 1 explicit consideration of how best to glean EFI from reserves to improve
Summary of the six applications of marine reserves detailed in this article that management systems. In so doing, reserves can serve as tools to improve
may benefit fisheries management and decision-making and outcomes. our understanding of fish biology, and population dynamics, improve
Fishery co-benefit Requirements and Application stock assessment outputs, and allow managers to make more informed
Conditionsa decisions.
1. Gleaning essential • Snapshot data • Provide life history and
fishery information gathering inside/ demographic 3.2. Reserves as a mechanism to promote ecosystem-based fisheries
(EFI) from reserves to outside reserves information from management (EBFM) in a changing climate
improve focused on EFI (e.g. unfished population to
management inputs biological parameters, inform assessments and
natural mortality) setting of harvest Climate-related threats to marine ecosystems including rising sea
control rules levels, more frequent disease outbreaks, acidification of sea water,
• Disentangle fishing and increased mortality and decreased productivity of key species, and
environmental effects changes in the geographic distribution of many important fish stocks
on life history
parameters
[59] are causing significant challenges for fisheries managers and the
• Use unfished life history fishing industry [39]. The need to consider comprehensive management
parameters that are of ocean ecosystems and fisheries within an ecosystem-based context is a
buffered from rapid life pressing management challenge.
history evolution due to
Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is “an integrated approach to
fishing pressure to
inform management management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans”
2. Using reserves as a • Incorporation of multi- • Observe/measure [40]. By protecting both resident species and their biophysical envi­
mechanism to species and/or EBFM multi-species and tro­ ronments within a stated geographic area, marine reserves provide an
protect species and approaches into man­ phic interactions crit­ ecosystem-based approach to management that is different from tradi­
habitats to promote agement decisions ical to EBFM
ecosystem-based • Identify species that
tional and pervasive single-species fisheries management [41]. There is
fisheries may be overfished in an ample evidence that intact marine communities can mitigate and pro­
management (EBFM) EBFM context mote adaptation to climatic disturbances ([7,60]); marine reserves that
• Disentangling enhance the complexity of system-wide trophic interactions may
environment from
therefore mitigate the risk of declines and corresponding fishery col­
fishing effects
3. Setting local • Time series of • Provide best lapses by protecting entire food webs [7].
management monitoring data that approximation of Reserves provide opportunities to observe important multispecies
regulations using tracks relevant unfished population and trophic interactions in settings where stock sizes and spatial struc­
inside-outside indicators (e.g. • Provide insights into ture are closer to unfished levels, thereby acting as laboratories for
reserve comparisons lengths, density) inside stock trajectory, even
/ outside of reserves before full stock
future science advances that are not possible in fished locations, while
recovery improving the understanding of ecosystem dynamics and hence man­
• Set harvest control rules agement decision-making. Crucially, successful ecosystem-based fish­
outside of reserves eries management (EBFM) requires integrating single-species
4. Gaining credit for • Seafood certification • Provide market rewards
management plans into an ecosystem-based fishery management plan
reserves in seafood program that provides for conservation
certification criteria and gives • Enhance stakeholder [42], a process that depends on having reference points for system-
credit for reserves in support for reserve specific unfished dynamics. However, systems with a long history of
stock status implementation exploitation may lack such reference points, thereby creating a major
determination as well • Promote sustainable obstacle to effective EBFM. In these cases, reserves can be used to set
as management fisheries
evaluation • Mitigate some
reference points to inform EBFM plans by more closely serving as win­
economic impacts of dows into a system’s near unfished state. By serving as a reference to
reserve implementation reveal food web shifts (e.g. due to overfishing of large predators) and to
5. Using reserves as • Reliable accounting of • Reduce probability of aid in the identification of species that may be considered not overfished
buffers in a the relationship stock collapse
in a single-species context, but that may be overexploited in terms of an
precautionary between reserve size, • Minimize uncertainty
approach to setting effectiveness and stock buffer while ecosystem plan or a multi-species fishery (e.g [42]), reserves provide an
allowable catch status maintaining opportunity to facilitate informed EBFM.
levels precautionary approach In a changing climate, reserves offer the potential to develop EBFM
• Promote faster re- plans that take into consideration natural dynamics of marine systems
building times for
less impacted by fishing. Through proper design and monitoring of re­
depleted stocks
6. Designing reserves • Reserves designed • Buffer fishing effects on serves it may be possible to improve EBFM and achieve climate-ready
to protect and specifically to protect low productivity fisheries management that can more readily integrate novel trophic in­
manage low low productivity stocks stocks/choke species teractions and information gleaned from within reserves [43]. Such
productivity species • Enhance fishing
approaches may identify opportunities that maintain fisheries while
in a multispecies opportunities on high
complex productivity stocks limiting the negative impacts of managing with limited information.

• Improve alignment with 3.3. Inside-outside reserve comparisons for setting local management
quota allocation regulations
a
Note: all of these applications are dependent on marine reserves being
appropriately designed and enforced to protect the populations and the A fundamental assumption of most stock assessment approaches is
ecosystem upon which they depend. that fishing pressure is uniform across space [63]. Reserves disrupt this
assumption of homogeneity by creating areas across the seascape less
impacted by fishing pressure. Field et al. [63] elaborated upon this
dilemma by pointing out that when reserves are ignored in stock as­
sessments, the stock may be perceived to be worse off than it is and catch
allowances may be overly restrictive. However, when reserves are

3
J.R. Wilson et al.
Fig. 1. The six applications of no-take marine reserves detailed in this article that benefit fisheries management decision-making and outcomes. EFI: Essential Fishery
Information, EBFM: Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management.
incorporated into assessments, catch levels are set appropriately high,
but localized depletions may occur in concentrated fishing areas outside
of reserve borders if there are no further effort restrictions in the fishery.
For species that display a relatively sedentary adult life history,
adequately sized reserves can serve as reference areas that provide a best
approximation of an unfished population size structure and density. By
monitoring the size and density of individuals over time, it is possible to
disentangle the effects of fishing from environmental variability
[35,44], and use these data to set local management regulations (outside
the reserve) based upon the comparisons of size and density inside the
reserve versus outside. A major benefit of inside-outside reserve com­
parison methods is that they are useful even before stocks inside reserves
have fully recovered: stock trajectories carry significant insights that can
benefit fisheries management well before potential benefits from spill­
over effects are achieved. Inside-outside approaches can be used in a
multitude of fisheries that lack sufficient data to conduct conventional
biomass-based stock status estimation, or for which it does not make
economic sense to invest heavily in resource-intensive stock
assessments.
Research on reserves as reference areas for harvest decision-making
is largely conceptual as few applications have been documented. Using
management strategy evaluation (MSE), Babcock & MacCall [45] and
McGilliard et al. [46] showed that the density of individual fished spe­
cies inside and outside of reserves can reliably be employed to set catch
levels and/or provide triggers to close a season using simple control
rules associated with the density ratio. McGilliard et al. [46] optimized
the control rule that would be most robust in meeting fishery manage­
ment objectives. Additionally, Wilson et al. [47] developed a reserve-
based harvest control rule that uses inside-outside comparisons to set
local catch levels. Through a collaborative catch and release program,
Wilson et al. [47] demonstrated that decisions predicated upon size
structure and catch per unit effort (CPUE) estimates inside and outside
marine reserves can maintain spawning potential ratios at acceptable
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Marine Policy 122 (2020) 104224
levels for certain sedentary species with a dispersive larval stage, such as
grass rockfish (Sebastes rastrelliger) and other coastal species.
The importance of methods and approaches that utilize data from
within and outside of reserves lies in the opportunity to learn from and
more fully respond to climate driven impacts to our ocean environment.
For instance, the ability to track responses in size structure, densities,
and abundance of key species, while better understanding the rela­
tionship and interactions between targeted species, non-targeted spe­
cies, and habitats, will be central to managing fisheries in a changing
climate [48,49]. Without long time series data for most fisheries
throughout the globe, proper use of reserves to set local management
regulations in an adaptive and experimental fashion may be an effective
strategy to respond proactively to real-time changes in ocean systems.
4. Credit and buffering against uncertainty
Following reserve implementation, fishers operate within a seascape
that now protects some portion of the stock, yet rarely are fishers
rewarded for adhering to new spatial limitations and they do not always
experience benefits from reserves [17]. To promote buy-in, there is a
need to identify opportunities to use reserves in ways that stimulate
compliance and contribute to improved management or improved rev­
enues for fishers. In the following sections we highlight three areas for
consideration.
4.1. Credit for reserves in seafood certification
Global demand for sustainable seafood is increasing [50] and
recognition of sustainable practices through labeling and certification is
a means to reward sustainably managed fisheries while providing bio­
logical benefits to fish stocks [51]. Integration of reserves into labeling
and/or certification schemes can incentivize reserve implementation
and enforcement through the assignment of credits for the protection of
J.R. Wilson et al.
adequate levels of spawning stock biomass within reserve borders
[44,52], while also protecting habitat and biodiversity.
Most seafood certification systems and fishery status sustainability
ratings do not incorporate reserves into the criteria that evaluates stock
status. Rather, these seafood programs generally acknowledge reserves
in the rating only when evaluating the effectiveness of the management
system. Existing seafood sustainability programs therefore may not
explicitly acknowledge the protection of older age/size classes within
reserves and the associated per capita enhanced contribution to
spawning biomass they provide. In addition to contributing to a positive
score in the management component, a credit in the stock status cate­
gory could further incentivize support for, and enforcement of, existing
marine reserves. Lester et al. [52] identified nearshore fisheries that
primarily target sedentary species with limited movement as ideal
candidates for reserve credit schemes. Market recognition for reserve
implementation through sustainable seafood ratings could additionally
help bridge the gap between possible reductions to yield and profit in the
short term and net fisheries benefits in the long term [18].
4.2. Reserves as buffers in a precautionary approach to setting allowable
catch levels
Under the precautionary approach, as identified by the United Na­
tions Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 and the
Code of Conduct agreement that resulted from the International Con­
ference on Responsible Fishing [53], fisheries should be managed such
that the risk of overfishing due to uncertainty is minimized. In the
United States, federal fisheries management, described in the
Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act
(MSFCMA) [54], adheres to the precautionary principle in setting the
rules by which annual catch limits (ACL) are set. The MSFCMA requires
that ACLs are set at or below the acceptable biological catch (ABC),
which is set below the overfishing limit (OFL) per an uncertainty buffer.
In situations where fishing mortality and stock collapse probability are
high, the establishment of a well-designed reserve may reduce the
probability of stock collapse [15]. Therefore, it may be possible to
reimagine the appropriate uncertainty buffer for a given fishery
depending on the level of reserve protection afforded to the stock,
assuming that the reserve is designed to promote benefits for that fishery
species. For a fishery that has a substantial amount of biomass protected
within a reserve, the associated uncertainty buffer may be minimized
without violating the principle of the precautionary approach. The
relationship between the level of reserve protection and the recom­
mended reduction to the uncertainty buffer could be generated using
management strategy evaluation (MSE) with a focus on the benefits of a
specific reserve or reserve network to the stock of interest.
Reserves may also be used to set sustainable catch levels within a
precautionary approach by redefining the minimum threshold that
curtails fishing in a harvest control rule framework. One form of harvest
control rule utilized in many fisheries takes the form of a “hockey stick”.
One iteration of a hockey stick control rule is the 40–10 rule, which
specifies that when an assessment outcome estimates that the stock is
> 40% of unfished conditions, the status quo management measures are
left in place (e.g. fish at maximum sustainable yield, FMSY). Assessment
outcomes between 40% and 10% of unfished conditions dictate a scaled
response that reduces harvest pressure in a linear fashion through
enhanced management measures. When assessment outcomes estimate
the status of the stock has fallen below 10% of unfished conditions,
fishing is curtailed. In cases where harvest control rule decisions do not
account for biomass protected within reserves, either due to limited
sampling or other challenges accessing data inside reserves, consider­
ation could be given to reevaluating the minimum threshold for the
harvest control rule under the assumption that a proportion of the stock
is fully protected. In circumstances such as these, defining the optimum
minimal threshold could be explored via simulation and would be
dependent on a suite of factors related to movement of fish and fishers.
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Marine Policy 122 (2020) 104224
4.3. Reserves as tools to protect and manage low productivity species in a
multispecies complex
Management of multispecies fisheries is challenging given high
variability in productivity rates between species and the ability of fish­
ermen to selectively target certain species. Management of multispecies
fisheries may center on multiple single species stock assessments, setting
of quotas for each species, and enforcement of those quotas through
strict catch accounting and punishment for overages. Typically, quota
levels for high productivity species tend to dwarf quotas for low pro­
ductivity species, creating significant limitations on the ability of fish­
ermen to match landings of targeted, high productivity species to
allocated quotas, for fear of accidentally catching low productivity
species and exceeding the allowable limit. In such fisheries, profits are
limited and the cost of enforcing catch accountability rules is high [55].
There is growing evidence that fishery closures have had biological
benefits for weak stocks [56,57], but the ability of reserves to protect
and meet management objectives specifically for low productivity stocks
relative to higher productivity stocks is an area of research that is ripe
for exploration through simulation modeling and/or empirical research.
It is hypothesized that protection of low productivity stocks using re­
serves, without additional quota restrictions, may prevent fishermen
from exceeding the low productivity stock quota, thus allowing better
alignment between high productivity species landings and quotas [58].
Considerations for effectively using reserves to buffer against uncer­
tainty in multispecies fisheries should include the relative permanence
of the low productivity species’ spatial distribution, the effectiveness of
enforcement, species specific biology and demography, and the trade­
offs between the management costs of each approach. It will also be
important to consider the costs and benefits of fully protecting a portion
of the habitats that weak stock species utilize throughout their life his­
tory (e.g. from nearshore to offshore), in order to minimize quota con­
straints in multispecies fisheries.
5. Conclusion
By protecting habitat and biodiversity, marine reserves offer signif­
icant environmental, cultural, aesthetic, scientific, and economic value
to a variety of stakeholders. However, the contributions of marine re­
serves to fisheries are less clear. The identification of six uses for reserves
in fisheries management and decision-making (Table 1; Fig. 1) suggests
additional benefits beyond biodiversity conservation and spillover to
fisheries are possible. Significant research is needed to fully understand
and capture the benefits outlined here. Each fishery is unique and will
require explicit consideration prior to assignment of these benefits.
This review is focused on the multitude of reasons to secure pro­
tections through implementation of reserves, and provides examples and
highlights from the literature to generate discussion and further scien­
tific exploration of these ideas. In all cases of reserve establishment,
there remains a clear need to combine the implementation of reserves
with effective fisheries management outside of reserve borders, along
with additional safeguards against destructive and extractive activities.
There are clear challenges and tradeoffs associated with investment
of resources into establishment of reserves. In addition to the need to
more fully understand the co-benefits of reserves outlined here, addi­
tional research is needed to better compare the monetary costs and
biodiversity benefits of managing fisheries with and without reserves. It
is unclear whether biodiversity or fisheries benefits would be better off
by alternatively investing these resources in improved understanding of
stock status, spatial, or gear specific restrictions, and improved
enforcement of fisheries management regulations. The use of manage­
ment strategy evaluation (MSE) is a valuable tool to elucidate tradeoffs
between approaches by identifying the social, economic and ecological
outcomes between alternative scenarios. Such tradeoffs are important to
explore given these are critical questions that inevitably will be debated
in town halls, government buildings, academic institutions, and
J.R. Wilson et al.
conference rooms across the globe. MSE, when designed as a bottom-up
community driven process to engender support and buy-in, can be
effective at improving transparency and accountability in the decision-
making process.
The goal of this work is to deepen the interactions and broaden the
discussions between managers, scientists, and the fishing community in
hopes that conservation outcomes and fisheries objectives can be more
clearly articulated and achieved. Ultimately, fishers, governments, and
conservationists have a shared goal for management of fisheries to
ensure that healthy, productive marine ecosystems can supply sustain­
able seafood to a growing population. By more fully realizing the po­
tential fishery benefits of reserves, it may be possible to bridge the
ideological divide between fishermen and conservationists and utilize
reserves to their full potential with the support and backing of these
constituents.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jono R. Wilson: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - original
draft. Darcy Bradley: Conceptualization, Visualization, Methodology,
Writing - original draft. Kristina Phipps: Methodology, Writing - orig­
inal draft, Writing - review & editing. Mary G. Gleason: Conceptuali­
zation, Methodology, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
Acknowledgments
Support for this work was provided by The Nature Conservancy, CA
with funding awarded by The Packard Foundation - Grant # 2016-
64971 and The Moore Foundation - Grant # 2234.02. Support for DB
provided by The Waitt Foundation. Earlier versions of the manuscript
were improved by comments from S. D. Gaines and A. Jackson.
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